The Assassins
by SillastraDragontongue
Summary: My version of the sixth year before I read OoP . . . added two of my own characters who are—surprise, surprise—assassins. There's some rape, violence, blood, some humor, and Voldemort, so I'm rating this T for Teen. [Complete]
1. The Train Ride

Children jumped up and down, running around and around and around, weaving through adults dressed in funny robes and screaming their heads off or talking in their high-pitched voices. A bell rang, announcing the ten-minute warning before the huge red train left, and Chandre jerked, dropping her end of the trunk in alarm. Her partner grunted as his end landed on his foot, and he glared at her, then ruined the image by yawning heavily and sneezing. Pulling a handkerchief out of his battered motorcycle jacket, he rubbed his nose, looking around sleepily. Tired of watching him and feet aching, Chandre sat down on the trunk, putting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands as she tried not to fall asleep.

Shi patted her on the back, and she raised her head and looked up at him. "I'll find the porter and see where we sit, kiddo. Guard the trunk." He punched her lightly on the arm and set off through the crowd, which separated unconsciously before him, the witches and wizards not sparing him a second glance, even though he was dressed in much different clothing than the rest.

Chandre sat back and tried to stay awake by watching the barrage of color and odd clothing. The adults here were dressed in brilliantly colored robes, although some were obviously trying to blend in with the world outside, the "Muggle" world, she guessed they called it, but they failed miserably. Some were wearing baggy pantaloons and tiny golfing caps, others French maid outfits and sneakers. One man was wandering around in a flowery pink nightgown, or what she thought was a nightgown; it was singing some dreadful drinking song. The children at least were dressed in better imitation of what Muggles would wear, in jeans and sneakers and t-shirts. Some were already dressed in their school uniforms, plain black wizarding robes, and they had their wands tucked neatly into their pockets. Personally Chandre had no idea why they thought their magik came from wands, but she didn't argue with the people of this planet. Their customs were odd enough, and she'd only be here for a term of their school year.

Yawning heavily, she pulled her jacket tighter about her, unconsciously feeling the daggers strapped to her arms for comfort. Her sword, which in the real universe off this damn planet was obsolete (except on her neo-barbaric homeworld), hung across her back, ready to be grabbed in a moment's notice. Or it would, if the blade wasn't melted off three inches from the hilt.

"Hello," someone said at her elbow, and she jumped to her feet, sneezing. Blinking blearily at the boy beside her, who was staring at her with some sort of alarm, she replied, "Uh, hi."

He was about her age, maybe several years younger, but still a boy in her eyes. All these kids were so damn young, even the oldest students at the school who were a year older than her. "Sorry if I scared you," the boy said. He had pale, pale skin and white-blond hair, and pale gray eyes stared at her. His lips were thin, meant more for sneering than smiling, but he was smiling now, as if trying to charm her. She didn't really want to be charmed, but since Shi probably wouldn't be able to find her in this mess if she took off with the trunk, she'd stay here and be social.

Covering her mouth to hide a yawn, she listened as the boy added, "I was just curious. I haven't seen you around here before. Are you a transfer?"

She blinked at him. Damn these people and their weird lingo. "Uh, yeah. Sure," she replied.

He looked amazed. "Wow. You must be from a pretty pure-blooded family to get into Hogwarts this late in the game."

"I'm only staying a semester," Chandre replied, completely lost in the conversation.

"Pure-blood?" he asked, as if it was an important question.

She had no idea how blood couldn't be pure, as she didn't do drugs. ". . . Yes."

"Really?" He stared at her eyes, and she stared back at him. So they were a little different than the average mold, with cat-like pupils. Nothing to get so excited about. "I'm Draco Malfoy. My dad's on his way to being the Minister of Magic."

"Oh. That's . . . nice," she said.

"I'm in Slytherin. What House are you in?"

"No clue," Chandre replied. Of course she wouldn't be staying in a House, she already had a room at Hogwarts, in the professors' wing.

She spotted Shi weaving back through the crowd, but Draco said, "You'll get into Slytherin, I bet. It's the best House."

Shi reached them, glanced at Draco and dismissed him as little more than an annoying pest. Turning to her, he said, "Porter said we can sit anywhere we want." He yawned again and cursed in five languages as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

He picked up one end of the trunk, and she took the other, and they walked towards the train, moving through the crowds, bumping into more people than not. Draco watched them go, noting their swords, and his eyes widened.

Quickly he trotted up to them, and asked, "Why do you have a sword? You don't need one here. A wand is good enough for spells."

Shi blinked at him. "Spells?" he mumbled. "The swords are for when the guns stop working."

"Guns?" Draco asked, as if he had never heard of the word, and they jumped into the train, leaving him behind.

The entire thing was packed with screaming, jumping, hyperactive children, and all of the compartments were full. They finally located an empty one somewhere towards the middle, nearish to the end, and Shi closed the glass door behind them, setting down his end of the trunk with a sigh. Chandre set hers down, and they shoved it under a bench, and fell onto them, staring at each other across the tiny room. She yawned, and zipped her jacket all the way up to her chin, snapping the top snap closed.

"You mind if I sleep first?" Shi asked, and before she could reply he had tilted his head back against the corner and closed his eyes, propping his muddy booted feet against her bench. Within moments he was breathing heavily, snoring every once in a while, and she grinned, yawning slightly as she played with the bandage on her right hand.

He had been awake the longest, sitting by her bedside while she was unconscious from that blast from Voldemort and they both hadn't slept more than three hours in the three days they had been away from Hogwarts to get their things.

She stared out the window, watching the kids in their carefree innocence. It had been a long time since she was that innocent. She wondered when she had lost it. The first man she had killed? Or when she had gone to school to join the Black Hells Army? Or was it when she had agreed to join Covert Ops, thinking of the glory of being an assassin? Some glory, skulking around in back-alleys and over rooftops, nabbing unsuspecting targets in the back. Of course, there were some good parts to it, like taking out truly evil people. She rubbed at the bandage on her hand. Of course, sometimes that didn't work out so well. She had just been lucky to escape that, only six days ago, when the Minister of Magic had sent them on a job to knock off as many Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort's little cadre of really vicious and nasty followers, as possible at one of their meetings. She and Shi had taken out about four before their hiding places had been discovered, and they had only escaped because Headmaster Dumbledore, realizing the trap the Minister had set his two new Professors in, had come and driven the Death Eaters, and Voldemort, off, but not before the Dark Lord had left them both for dead.

Or so he thought. Voldemort obviously had not realized that two "Muggles" could be almost completely resistant to magic, thanks to Chandre's homeplanet, which had magik in abundance, causing her veins to run thick with it. Shi had been there long enough to be doused with the magik, and although neither of them could work it, she at least could sense it, and the "magic" here was potent enough to sense miles away. If Chandre hadn't been a very minor telepath, she wouldn't have been able to raise high enough shields to deflect it from driving her crazy, along with the noisy thoughts of school children as they broadcasted very, very loudly. Unfortunately for her, her shields were very low, thanks to that blast of whatever Voldemort had hit her with, and the mental screams and shouts of glee were about to drive her up the wall. At least Shi was having some relief; he was about as sensitive as a brick when it came to magik and telepathy.

Watching him sleep happily away, she glowered at him. Somehow he could just nod off anywhere it pleased him, although he was a very light sleeper and woke up to almost any abnormal noise.

Someone rapped on the glass, and she jumped, cursing herself for having such jittery nerves, and turned to stare at the three students who were standing outside. Shi snorted at the noise, and raised his head, eyes narrowed in annoyance as he studied the students, then turned towards the window, yawning, and dropped back to sleep, head cushioned by an arm.

Quietly Chandre motioned for them to open the door, and asked, "What do you want?" trying very hard not to yawn, but one crept up on her.

"Um . . . All of the compartments are full, and we were wondering if we could--" the black hair boy began, but she cut him off.

"Fine, come in, just keep it quiet. He hasn't slept in a while," she said, settling deeper into her corner.

They came in, making as little noise as possible, although the white owl in the black-haired boy's cage flapped and squawked a tad before settling down. The girl, who had bushy hair and pretty blue eyes, sat down on her side, while the two boys shared the bench with Shi, who didn't move an inch through the entire time, having already classified them as safe or mildly harmless.

"I'm Hermione," the girl said, and held out her hand. Chandre stared at it for a moment, then shook it. "I haven't seen you before. Are you a new student?"

"Professor," Chandre replied. "I'm Chandre, that's Shi." She watched as the students took in their rather scruffy appearance, and stared at the two boys expectantly.

"I'm Ron," the red head said. He was tall, gangly, and was wearing a hideous maroon sweater.

"And I'm Harry," the black haired one said. He was smaller than his friend, with old glasses and clothing that was way too big for him, and fairly old, for that matter. Like it was second hand or something, or had been passed down to him from an older sibling. He was the one that drew her eye, and it took a while before she realized that he had the same sad, haunted look in his eyes that lots of people who have seen far more than they ever wanted to see had, as if he had seen horror and hell and lived through it. She pitied him. He was too damn young for it.

"Are you fifth years?" she asked, trying to place their age.

"Sixth," they said. It put them at the same age: seventeen. She felt old.

"What do you teach?" Hermione asked.

"Combat," Chandre replied, hiding a yawn behind her hand and rubbing her tearing eyes. The train lurched suddenly, and the wheels squealed as they began to move. "Without magik, though. I guess you guys call it 'Muggle-dueling'?"

The three students stared at her with equal amounts of surprise. "So you're a Muggle?" Harry asked. "How can you see everything?"

She shook her head. "We're not Muggles. We're both from off-planet."

With a loud HONK! the train cleared the station, and Shi jerked, then settled back to sleep, forehead pressed against the window.

"Off-planet! Wow! What's it like out there?" Ron asked, getting excited. "Do you travel the stars, go beyond the galaxy, that sort of thing?"

Chandre stared at him. "It's pretty boring, really," she admitted. "And expensive. We normally work as short-term laborers, and those jobs tend to be pretty shitty. Condition-wise, anyhow, but it's the only way to travel for us."

"So how come you're here?" Ron asked.

"To teach you how to defend yourselves," Chandre replied, feeling very relieved that some students were easier to understand than others. Maybe it was just because it was a little less chaotic in the compartment than on the platform. "Headmaster Dumbledore was quite insistent that you learn how."

"So you'll teach us how to give Death Eaters the ol' one-two?" Ron asked, getting even more excited. His freckles stood out from his face and his blue eyes sparkled.

"With Death Eaters, I'd suggest that you run," Chandre said.

"Run," Ron repeated, looking a tad crestfallen, and more than a little skeptical at her abilities. "Isn't that cowardly?"

Chandre shrugged. "Maybe. I'd rather stay alive though, instead of doing some sort of heroic crap that'll get me killed. And you should too. There're enough idiots out there pretending to be heroes. Don't add yourself to the list."

They were staring at her like she had just sprouted wings from the top of her head. "You mean, don't stay and fight? What if your friends are in danger and no help's around?" Harry asked her. It was like he was quizzing her, testing her.

"Are you asking if it were me?" she asked, and they nodded. "Well, I don't exactly fit the format that you guys fall into." She yawned again, and cursed softly. Damn sleep deprivation. At least she had some pick-me-up pills in her pocket, in case something happened. Too bad the side effects were nasty. "So I'd advise for you, in that situation, to try your best and not get killed, but don't feel ashamed however it turns out. You tried, and you weren't trained to deal with those sort of things happening."

"Were you?" Harry asked.

"I wouldn't be teaching the class if I wasn't," Chandre replied, and turned to stare out the window.

"Is that a sword?" Hermione asked, seeing the scabbard and hilt.

Chandre turned back. "It was." Carefully she unbuckled the baldric and leaned the scabbard and hilt against the bench, wincing when it bent in the middle. Quietly she stared out the window again, the students taking that as a hint she didn't want to talk, and began playing some game or other.

Two hours later she woke up Shi, who grumbled, and fell asleep, cradling her head against the window as the trees and meadows sped by.


	2. Attack by Death Eater

SQUWEEE!

She woke with a yelp as she was slammed into the far wall, colliding with Shi and tangling limbs. He shoved her off him with a snarl and rose, guns already in his hands. "This train supposed to stop?" he asked the students, who were fallen in a pile near the door.

They shook their heads, and Chandre froze as the screams began to start, near the back of the train. Shi cursed and bolted out the door. Chandre leapt up and ran after him, her gun in her hand. As she reached the door, she snapped, "Stay there!" and sprinted down the narrow aisle, telling the other frightened students to stay there. As she ran she popped the pick-me-up pill into her mouth, seeing Shi do the same, and a bolt of energy jittered down her spine.

She quickly passed Shi and stole his sword as she ran towards the back of the train, pausing at the last door, where she could feel the dark magic even with her shields up.

Shi paused beside her, and murmured, "Guns work here?"

"They stop fifty meters behind the train," she replied, just as softly. A whimper rose from the cabin before them, and something smelt like rotting eggs. He watched her expectantly, and she said, after lowering her shields, "Death Eaters. Three inside, two on each side, eight to the back. With something else. It's wholly magical. Cold magic."

He nodded, and fitted a silencer to one gun, then leaned out of the cabin doors, shooting the four on the sides of the train, while she burst into the cabin, firing her gun at the first hooded Death Eater she saw. Luckily her bullets were the kind that didn't pass through bodies, no matter how close, so she wasn't in danger of hitting anyone. The man's face disappeared in a burst of red, and she was aiming at the other two, downing one instantly.

The last one had grabbed a youngish girl, and she was sobbing wildly. The Death Eater pointed his wand at the girl's head, and growled, "Shoot me and she dies. Drop the gun and sword."

Chandre snarled, and bent down slowly, placing her weapons on the ground, watching him. As soon as she was standing up, he raised his wand and shot at her, and she ducked, dodging the spell narrowly and grabbing Shi's sword.

Leaping up, she jumped at him, too fast for him to react, and her sword slammed into his throat, just above the girl's head. The sword slammed deep into the woodwork and blood splattered against her cheek and poured on top of the girl's hair like crimson syrup.

Grabbing the kid, Chandre jerked back, taking her sword with her. Shi jumped into the cabin, putting the silencer into his pocket, and bent to pick up her gun, tossing it to her. She caught it without looking, and let go of the girl, pushing away.

"Through the side doors," Shi said, and they backtracked. "You take the magical thing. I've got the Death Eaters," he added as they reached the side doors.

She nodded, and they jumped down of the train, falling to opposite sides. Landing silently in an elastic crouch on the rough gravel, she tread softly to the end of the train, where the Death Eaters were waiting, ready to face the disturbance they had felt in the train, or just waiting for the job to get done with.

Gunshots erupted on the other side, and she felt spells being cast. Sprinting down the length of the train, she slowed and saw the scene. Shi had already reached the Death Eaters, and two lay on the ground, one headless with just a pool of blood about him, the other sprawled in an ungainly angle. Five others raised their wands to him, and she raised her gun, firing in rapid succession at them as something cold oozed up behind her.

Turning at the last moment, she raised her gun, and froze. The creature swept its hand up, hitting her. She was sent flying, dropping her gun in surprise but keeping a hold on the sword. Hitting the ground with a thud, she scrambled to her feet as the black robed and hooded creature came at her, leeching the very color from her surroundings.

Slamming up her mental walls to keep the thing from her thoughts, she attacked it, growing slower at every step as it drained something away from her. Snarling, she came forwards, and it swept her into its arms, lowering its face to hers in an awful mimicry of a kiss.

Yelling in surprise, she brought her sword up, and couldn't, it was too long. Dropping the sword, she put one hand to its face, trying to keep it from touching her, while her other hand quested along her boot, looking, looking--aha!--she pulled out the dagger and plunged it into the creature's back. It loosened its grasp on her, distracted, and she twisted, falling to the ground and on top of the sword. Rolling, she grabbed it and shoved it into the creature's chest as it came for her again. The watery runes on Shi's sword flared brightly before there was a burst of darkness and poof, and the creature was gone in a fluttering of ashes.

Gasping, she staggered to her feet, hand twitching in pain, blood seeping through the bandage. There was a shot, and she looked up as Shi tackled the last Death Eater. They rolled about for a while as she ran up to them, but Shi had it covered, ending up sitting on the Death Eater's chest, gun pointed at its head.

She reached them and picked up the man's wand, watching while Shi questioned him after ripping off his hood, revealing a very pale, very scared, very ordinary brown-haired man.

"Why did you attack the train?" Shi asked. The man hissed, growing a spine, but her partner just slammed the butt of his gun into his face, almost casually. "Why did you attack the train?" he asked again, handing her the gun and doing something with his free hand to the man's neck. The Death Eater screamed, and she winced. She hated torture, even necessary torture to bad men like this. The reek of his mind unsettled her, and she normally didn't pick up the thoughts of people with her shields up high.

"L-lord V-voldem-mort t-t-told us t-to," he stammered. "F-for th-the boy."

"What boy?" Shi snarled, and touched a spot on the man's neck.

The Death Eater paled, but didn't scream. Shi was only suggesting the damage he could do. "H-Harry P-P-Pott-ter. Please d-d-don't le-let him k-k-kill m-me, n-nice girl," he said, imploring her with wide brown eyes.

She spat and kicked him. "Don't look at me, dirtbag. I know what you've done," she said, disgust and horror on her voice.

"P-p-please!" the man begged, tears welling in his eyes. Chandre wasn't convinced.

"I'm not going to kill you," Shi said calmly, stroking back the man's hair, pretending to be gentle. The man screamed, terrified. Chandre heard footsteps behind her, but didn't turn. They were friendlies. The porter and the two lunchladies.

"Chandre," Shi murmured, drawing her attention to him. "Can you put a message in his mind?"

She shuddered, and recoiled back. "In that?" she asked, and her partner looked up at her.

"Chandre, you're the only one who can make sure that he delivers it," Shi said, looking back at the man, hate on his face.

She nodded, and knelt beside the man, placing her hands gently on either side of his forehead. She may not be a strong telepath, but she was strong enough for this. With a deep breath she released her shields and her hold on her body, descending into the man's head and his memories. What she saw made her want to scream and beat her head against a wall.

She had met bad men, but this had to be near the top. He had raped children, women, and men, put the worst spells on all of them, and killed babies before its parents' eyes, all the while laughing merrily. What was worse was that he was an upstanding member of the community, with no one, not even his wife, suspecting what he was.

Carefully Chandre began to mold a message into the man's brain, taking all of his happy memories and locking them carefully away, then twisting the views of his memories so that he was the victim, being tortured, being raped. Finally, she implanted her message firmly onto his lips, with the compelling command to force him to seek Voldemort until he found the man or died. He wouldn't stop for food or water or bathroom, and she was jerked away at the very end as someone grabbed her body roughly, shaking her back inside.

Opening her eyes, she found she was crying, and looked up to see Shi kneeling before her, shaking her roughly by the shoulders. He snapped her name, but she watched as the man got to his feet and rose, shambling off in the direction of the woods, dumbly muttering, "The two assassins live. Try to come to the children and die. The two assassins live. Try to come to the children and die." The porter tried to grab him, but she shook her head, and Shi snapped at them to let the man go. He stumbled back off, screaming every once in a while through his repeated mumbling. Slowly he was out of sight as the forest swallowed him up.

". . . Chandre, kiddo." She snapped back into focus as Shi shook her again, and pushed away from him.

"I'm okay," she whispered, horrified to find that she was shaking.

"Dear gods, miss, what did you do to him?" the porter asked, scratching his grizzled head and staring in the direction the Death Eater had gone.

"I-I gave him his just reward," Chandre replied, looking at him. She looked around, seeing the carnage and the pale faces looking from the windows of the train, filled with expressions of horror, fear and terror. "Shouldn't we get going? Voldemort might send another batch to come finish us off."

The porter and the lunch ladies nodded, and the porter asked, "What about the bodies on the train?"

"We'll deal with them," Shi said. "You start the train up. Ivy, Rose?" The two lunchladies looked at him, their round faces pale. "Calm the students. Don't freak out. You're the adults, remember? And get the prefects, those who aren't completely frozen and shocky, to help you with the youngest."

They all set off for their jobs, Chandre and Shi quickly dragging the bodies to the ditches and leaving them there for the carrions to fight over, after taking the wands and putting them in their pocket for Dumbledore. The engine was rumbling and they had to run to jump onto the back platform of the train, weapons bundled in their arms. Bursting through the door, she shoved her partner to the ground as spells sizzled above their heads. He rolled to his feet, and she snapped, "Wands down! The danger's past."

Shi had already reached the first body, and they picked it up together and carried it out to the back, swinging it off the train. It landed with a sickening thud and began to roll down the hill into the nearby forest, and the other two bodies followed shortly. They collected the wands again, but nothing was to be done about the bloodstains on the wooden panels and floor, at least, not right then.

Finishing with the last body, Chandre walked to the platform, feeling the blood drying on her face and hands. Shi followed her, and they stood outside, trying to clean off their faces with clean handkerchiefs. Giving up, Chandre mopped up Shi's face while he did hers, and they let the stained handkerchiefs float into the wind behind them, then headed inside, chilled yet jittery from the pick-me-ups.

On the way, Shi touched her arm lightly, comforting. It was his way of apologizing for making her go into the Death Eater's mind. He knew full well that she absolutely hated doing it; normally, she refused, and only for him had she done it.

The walk back to their compartment was silent, filled with long looks from the students, who stared at their blood covered clothes and Shi's sword and their guns, neatly tucked back into now-openly displayed holsters, with a little nervousness and some awe.

Only Harry was in the compartment, pacing back and forth with irritation and some anger. He looked up when they entered, his face slightly hopeful, and then it went back to its storm cloud expression.

"Where're the other two?" Shi asked as Chandre settled down into her corner, putting Shi's sword next to her own. She wasn't surprised at how pleasant and mellow his voice was, even this soon after a fight. Shi had excellent control over himself and his emotions, although mostly it was to keep his huge amounts of rage in check. He was a berserker, when someone pissed him off enough he didn't stop until everyone in the room with him was dead or dying or until he was thoroughly restrained, which was very, very hard. Fortunately, he hardly ever berserked, his control was so good; she had only seen him do it once, and he had nearly killed her. Not that there weren't times that she had almost killed him.

"They're prefects," Harry replied bitterly. "So they're with the first and second years, trying to calm them down, I think." He looked up at them. "Where were you?" He slowly began to take in the blood on their clothes, the way their eyes glinted with a strange fervor, the smear of red just under Shi's jaw, where Chandre had missed. His eyes widened. "What happened?"

"Death Eaters attacked the train," Shi replied, sitting down in his spot.

Chandre shifted in her seat, feet tapping with nerves. Pick-me-ups weren't meant for non-combat, and she hated the feeling when they hadn't run off yet, and her adrenaline was peaking. She glanced at Shi, who was staring down at his hands. They were trembling with suppressed energy.

"How many?" Harry asked.

"Not enough," Chandre answered, staring out the window. The door opened, and she jumped up, gun in her hand. Her arm was shaking slightly, but it wouldn't put off her aim, and Shi was beside her in the same position, his hand rock steady but his breath rasping in his throat. Hermione and Ron gasped, and she quickly lowered her gun, trying to breath slowly and not start to hyperventilate. Her partner slowly sank his head between his knees, his shoulders trembling lightly as he breathed.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked, doubtfully. "You guys seem a little . . . tense." She stepped towards them.

Shi waved his hand, waving her off. "We're fine," he said without lifting his head. "It's just the pills. They're not meant for just sitting. Ignore us."

"How can we? You just took out a whole bunch of Death Eaters. With guns!" Ron exclaimed. "And a sword. Penelope said you rammed a sword into a Death Eater's neck when he was holding her and you didn't touch her. How'd you do that?"

Chandre closed her eyes and tried to construct her shields a little higher, but didn't have the right type of energy. Her breath started picking up as she caught their excitement and fear and alarm and roiling hormones, rolling her around and around her mind.

Shi touched her hand, lightly, and she jerked back, gasping. He recoiled in surprise. "Kiddo?" he asked gently, leaning forwards again. The other three were watching her with alarm, and she breathed faster, shaking her head, trying to clear it. "Chandre, what's wrong?" He took her hands.

Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled between her shoulder blades. "Calm down, calm down," she mumbled.

Shi caught her meaning, and turned towards the students. "Settle your thoughts, will you?" Suddenly he looked down, and cursed, all the while staying calm. He always had a calm mind, but then, he also had a natural wall that no telepath could penetrate without killing him. "Fuck. Your hand's bleeding again."

She looked down at the blood-covered bandages. Some of it wasn't hers, but a lot was. He released her hand and reached down into his pack, coming up with some linen bandages and ointment Madam Pomfrey had given them.

"Ah, you might want to look away," Shi told the students, and shoved the ointment jar into Chandre's good hand. Flicking a dagger into one hand, he slowly began to tear open the bloody bandages, Chandre watching, paying rapt attention. It was a way to calm down. Gently he peeled away the soaked cloth, and hissed. She winced, distancing herself immediately from the hand. It wasn't hers, it wasn't hers, oh gods it wasn't hers. She looked down again, seeing the hand. Looking at the back of her hand, it was just a couple burns and some welts, with blisters running up her forearm all the way up her elbow, oozing and popping when she bumped into things. Nothing special, just a little nasty. But the palm . . . she forced herself to watch, biting her lip from the pain, as Shi dabbed at the blood pouring from the cracks in the blackened flesh. Scorch marks radiated from the center of her palm to her fingertips, and Shi dutifully rubbed some ointment over everything, then wrapped up the bandages, leaving her hand free enough to do most things, even if it was painful.

"It's not healing," Chandre murmured as he finished wrapping it. She didn't understand. Six days, and it wasn't healing. Even something as bad as that should have closed up by now, even for a normal person. But she wasn't entirely normal. Her body healed much faster than average humans, thanks to genetic engineering generations past. This should be nothing more than a faint scar. And it wasn't healing.

"Poppy said something like that might happen," Shi said, putting the stuff back into his bag. "All we can do is keep it clean and let it heal." She nodded. Her resistance to magik of all sorts also prevented most healings, something that the nurse at Hogwarts had found out the hard way. When Chandre and Shi had been dragged in after their encounter with Voldemort, Pomfrey had tried to heal Chandre with a potion. The effect was almost instantaneous. Chandre had almost died, and had gone into a semi-catatonic state for a day before coming back out again.

"What happened?" Ron asked, staring at her now bandaged hand. Self-consciously she pulled the sleeve of her jacket back down, covering it.

"I burned it," she replied.

"No shit," Harry said, he covered his mouth in alarm at his slip, then went on. "That thing is toasted. How'd it happen?"

"It's a perk of our job. Don't ask," Chandre said, and Shi snorted in suppressed laughter.

Ron felt compelled to try, however. "You're not professors . . . are you?"

"Now we are," Shi said. He grinned slightly. "I'd consider this a vacation. How 'bout you?" Chandre grinned back, under a thin layer of control. Everything had stopped shaking except for her hands, which she stuffed into her pockets, safely out of sight.

The students stared at them, and then turned away when neither offered up any more information on what they did. They really didn't want to know, Chandre thought, turning back to the window to watch the mountains come closer and closer as the sun fell behind them, sending their world into darkness. The life of an assassin was not for the faint of heart.


	3. Welcoming Feast

The rest of the journey was calm, and they reached Hogwarts only an hour late. Grabbing one end of her trunk with her good hand after Shi had stood up, they shuffled out of the compartment, saying their good-byes to the students.

Hopping down from the train, Chandre groaned as raindrops splattered onto her face. Now she'd be wet on top of being covered in blood. Shi laughed at her unhappy face, and she smacked him on the shoulder. Mud squelched under her boots as she followed him to where a huge bulk of a man was standing, yelling, "Firs' years, o'er 'ere! Firs' years! All righ' 'Array?" There was a call of affirmation from their compartment mates, and Hagrid spotted the two assassins. "Shi! Chandre! Ye made it! Dumbledore wants a word wit' ye." Shi raised a hand, and they bundled into one of the carriages, Chandre staring at the huge black winged horse in horror. It was one of the ugliest creatures she had ever seen, with beady red eyes and a forked tongue. Shi winced, looking at it, but it seemed that none of the students seemed to notice at all. It was hard not to notice something that disgusting and creepy.

In the bumpy ride over to the castle, she leaned back in her seat while Shi stuffed their guns into their trunk. They wouldn't be needing guns here, and if they did, the damn things wouldn't work anyway. Normal, "Muggle" things didn't work too well in Hogwarts, or in any part of the wizarding world, for that matter.

After an interminable time, they reached the castle, Chandre hopping out first, her knapsack swung over her shoulder, and she turned, grabbing her end of the trunk. Shi hopped out, and the creatures swung away. As they passed by her, Chandre hesitantly patted one on the neck, and it turned and made some sort of purring sound. The students were all pouring into the Great Hall, so they headed there, but were stopped by an old man with half-moon glasses and a long, white beard.

Dumbledore smiled at them, although there was a note of seriousness in his normally twinkling blue eyes. They stopped before him, setting the trunk down. "Was anyone hurt?" he asked. They shook their heads. "I do include you in that question," he added, taking in their scruffy and bloody appearance. Shi rubbed the blond stubble on his chin self-consciously.

"No more than a couple of bruises," Chandre replied. "One of the Death Eaters was sent back as a messenger. The others are dead."

"How many attacked the train?" Dumbledore asked.

Shi counted, and replied, "Thirteen. And one black hooded thing that wasn't human."

"Black hooded thing?" Dumbledore asked. "Mr. Davis and Ivy and Rose said nothing about that. What did it look like?"

Shi glanced at Chandre, who replied promptly, "It was . . . cold. Like it was sucking my life-force away or something. The colors faded."

"Dementer," Dumbledore growled. "What happened to it?"

"It burst into ashes," Chandre said. "After I stuck Shi's sword into it, that is." Dumbledore looked surprised. "Do you think that killed it?" she asked.

"I've never heard of a dementer being killed," the headmaster said slowly. "Nor being reduced to ashes. Perhaps you killed it. But the important thing is that Voldemort is getting more anxious and cocky. He's willing to take risks he wouldn't have before. I'm happy you two are going to be here this term. Perhaps some off-world know-how is just what we need for this school." He held out his arms, and added, "Welcome back to Hogwarts. There will be a welcoming feast in about twenty minutes, after the Sorting Hat sorts the first years into their respective Houses. I hope that's enough time to get cleaned up? I don't think that your attire would be exactly welcoming to another's appetite."

"Thank you," Chandre said, and picked up her end of the trunk.

"There's a bathroom just to the left of the right banister, through that door," Dumbledore said. "Tickle the candelabra, and the door swings open. You can leave your trunk when you're done. Someone will take it to your room." He nodded, and walked up the stairs to the Great Hall.

Chandre practically sprinted to the bathroom in her haste to be clean. Unfortunately a bath would have to wait until later, but she could change out of her clothes and into something clean. Shi followed her, moving just as fast, and hurriedly stripped out of his clothes. She followed him, wiggling out of her pants and shirt and jacket. Before she changed into a clean pair of loose black fatigue trousers and black t-shirt, she washed her face, neck and arms, anything that had blood on it. Undoing her braid, she recombed her hair and rebraided it, letting it fall straight down her back. Pulling on her clothes, she strapped on her daggers, hiding them about her body, watching while Shi carefully shaved in the mirror, which was intent on giving him instructions. After it told him to "Check the chin, dummy!" he growled something obscene in her native language, and finished, rinsing his face.

Putting the razor in their trunk, he dug out a clean black shirt and pulled it on, muscles rippling. Running a hand through his military-buzzed blond hair, he asked, "Ready?"

Chandre nodded, and they walked out to the Great Hall companionably. They had been together long enough that words sometimes weren't needed. Some people might argue that a year was too short, but she figured that most people who were together, whether sexual or plutonic, didn't spend over twenty-two hours of their day together. She and Shi did, and they weren't even a couple, just partners.

The door they took opened placed them across the hall from the professor's table, and the Sorting Hat's placement of the first years was going on. Not wanting to draw undue attention to themselves, they watched the Sorting, leaning casually against a wall. Chandre spared a glance at Shi, who was watching with rapt fascination, although his face was closed and his eyes half-lidded with apparent boredom, as if he had seen everything and nothing fazed him. He caught her looking at him and raised an eyebrow slightly, then went back to watching. Chandre turned back also, trying to keep a calm, halfway bored look on her face as it continued. She had seen strange things in her life, but a hat calling out names of Houses topped the list. Or came very close. And she had seen a lot of strange stuff.

Finally it was over, or nearly over, as "Zevrin, Xanis," was called and sent rapidly to Hufflepuff. Then the Hat burst into song, singing something about the history of Hogwarts and the four founders and how in these troubled times, unity was desperately needed if good was going to triumph over the dark. During the applause, Chandre and Shi walked between the long tables of students up to the professor's table on its raised dais. There were two seats left, one between Hagrid and McGonagell, the other at the end next to Snape. Shi bagged the lucky one, near the jolly half-giant and strict-but-pleasant professor, and Chandre made a face at him when she passed him, and he smirked. With a pleasant smile to the dour-faced Snape she sat at her seat, greeting Flitwick and Sprout, who sat down the table from him. She had met all of the professors before leaving to retrieve her things, and she had to admit, she liked her seat-partner least of all.

Snape leaned over to say something as the thunder of applause died down, but Dumbledore stood up and everyone quieted. Severus leaned back to his seat, and they turned to watch Dumbledore as the students stared raptly at him.

"I'd like to talk now, but you wouldn't listen to me, just the rumbling in your stomachs," he said. "So just two words: Eat up!"

Suddenly huge amounts of food appeared on the empty platters on the table, and Chandre's mouth watered. She didn't put anything on the golden plate that sat in front of her though, because she knew very, very well that she'd be vomiting it all up during the night anyway. That was the wonderful side effect of the pick-me-ups, that and a stunning feeling very much akin to the worst of hangovers.

But she hadn't eaten in two days, and the food made her mouth water. Finally she sighed, and took a thin little sliver of some sort of meat from the nearest platter, and began to eat, slowly, savoring each bite. She probably wouldn't eat this ever again. Vomiting up something did that to one.

Snape leaned towards her again, and she looked up, raising an eyebrow in question. "You have a smear of blood on the back of your neck," he said.

She groaned, and he gestured on himself where it was. Dabbing a little water from her goblet onto her napkin, she wiped dutifully at it until it was all gone, and thanked him.

"I heard you destroyed a dementer," Severus added, obviously attempting to make conversation. Seeing as she didn't like to talk about her kills, it was a really weak attempt.

"If that's what it was," Chandre replied, sticking a piece of meat into her mouth. "And how have you been keeping yourself, Severus? No sticklewickie caught in your gullet or between your toes, I hope? No verdlemoot infestation in your cellars?" He stared at her with raised eyebrows, completely not getting the joke, and she smiled. "Sorry. I just made those up on the spot. Let me tell you something." She leaned closer, and he bent his head in too, the greasy black hair almost touching her cheek. Her eyes let out a wild green glint, her killing face. "I may be an assassin, but I don't like talking about what I have killed. I'm not a game hunter. I do not brag about killing." She leaned back, and noticed with some satisfaction that his face was slightly pale with anger. "Wonderful meat stuff, isn't it?" she asked pleasantly, smiling cheerfully. Her eyes sparkled merrily.

Snape sat back abruptly, scowling darkly at her. "It's haggis."

She stared at him blankly. "Pardon?"

"Sheep's gut," he replied flatly.

If he had been expecting horror, he was wrong. Her smile broadened. "No different than the roasted yesta eyeballs from home. You know, when they're really good, they ooze yellow pus when you eat them." He flinched, and she took a huge bite of the haggis, savoring it even though she knew that she'd regret it later that night. Then again, she had just made an enemy of Snape, and he had only been trying to be pleasant. Although if that was pleasant, then she wanted a refund. He was like a second-hand hovercraft dealer, all oily smoothness and grease, with a huge hooknose to boot. That was rude of her, she thought, looking down slightly. She had liked men a lot uglier than him, but at least they didn't exude such a . . . she was at a loss of words for why she didn't like Snape.

"So," she said after a long time of silence from their end of the table, the only conversation from Flitwick and Sprout laughing over various anecdotes on Crying Mufflewarfs or something, completely oblivious to the quiet to their right. "So, got any Mrs. Snape?"

"I'm single," he replied flatly.

"Ah," she said, glancing off at the masses of black-robed students eating and laughing merrily, their ordeal on the train utterly forgotten. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a very familiar girl enter the hall, her hair wet, but clean. It was the Penelope girl the Death Eater had held hostage, a much less bloody Penelope, at any rate.

"And you and Professor Shindle?" Snape asked suddenly. "Are you two more than just . . . partners?"

Chandre glanced at Snape sharply, drawing back to the conversation as the girl seated herself carefully at the Gryffindor table. "He's my partner, Severus," she replied, making her voice smooth and silky. It was all that was keeping her from stabbing one of her daggers into him. She rarely got impulses like that. "And my friend. There's too much between us to ever become anything else."

"What sort of things?" Snape asked.

She smiled. "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," she purred.

Snape blinked. It seemed he didn't get that old, hackneyed joke either. Chandre sighed, and rubbed her head, wincing as a headache came on. Quietly she set aside her fork, not feeling hungry anymore as waves of nausea swept over her.

"I hope you didn't just kill yourself," Snape drawled. "Someone poison you?"

Chandre laughed, shook her head, and instantly regretted it as her vision swam. "Just some side-effects from a pill."

"You're taking drugs?"

Chandre glanced up at him and grimaced. "Trust me, the side-effects completely blindside the perks. What perks there are."

Snape opened his mouth to say something else, but Dumbledore was standing up again. Looking around, Chandre realized that the students were almost completely done eating; only two huge buffoons from the Slytherin table were still shoveling food into their overly large mouths. She wanted to gag, and it wasn't just from the pills. The two boys had grease and bits of food dribbling down their double chins.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," Dumbledore began, spreading his arms wide. "Another year of studying and schooling, and, hopefully, few mishaps." Chandre found herself dozing as he spoke, her eyes open and her face one of interested attention (she had learned that from drop commando training).

She jerked awake as Dumbledore said, "The events today on the train were unexpected and an indicator of how serious and powerful the Dark Side has begun. To overcome this great danger it is imperative to set aside our differences and bond together to defeat the common enemy."

"What happened on the train?" one student asked. Apparently he hadn't heard the rumors flying. Chandre had, during the Sorting.

"For those of you who haven't been informed, the unexpected stop the Hogwarts Express made an hour and a half before reaching the school was due to an attack by a group of thirteen Death Eaters and one dementer," Dumbledore said. "Although the object of the attack has not been discovered--" Chandre winced, she hadn't told him that and neither had Shi, "--no one was hurt. I believe the worst injuries were to the attackers. Twelve--" he glanced at Shi, who nodded slightly, "--died, and the dementer was destroyed."

"What about the last Death Eater?" someone shouted. Chandre recognized Harry from the crowd. "What about him?"

"I believe that he won't be hurting anyone anymore," Dumbledore replied. Chandre glanced over at Shi; he looked like he was feeling just as shitty as she, although he probably hid it far better. "But, thanks to two of our new professors, the attack on the train was not a success. Professors Zividia, Shindle, please stand up so the students can see you."

Chandre rose, composing a pleasant expression on her face, while inwardly she tried not to throw up all over Snape's greasy head. The students clapped politely, those who had not seen them surprised at how young they were. She knew that she looked only slightly older than the students, and Shi looked little more. He was only twenty-two, after all.

"They'll be teaching a new Combat class," Dumbledore said. "I believe they have some experience in the fighting arts, and they hail from off-planet. So please, make their stay a pleasure and don't play any pranks on them." He smiled, taking the slight sting out of his words. "I believe that this is a vacation for you two, isn't it?" Chandre and Shi nodded.

"Our other new professor is Defense of the Dark Arts Professor Babcock," Dumbledore said, and Chandre and Shi sat down quickly, Chandre covering her mouth slightly, the other hand holding her stomach discretely under the table as it grumbled and groaned. "Professor Babcock once attended Hogwarts way back in, what was it, '94?" He nodded, and Chandre smiled slightly. Babcock was handsome, and young, if older than Shi. At least they wouldn't be the only new young professors here. "Anyhow, this is something of a coming home for him. Back to the old stomping grounds, eh, Professor?" He nodded again, and there was more polite applause, and he sat down.

Dumbledore announced the end of dinner, and Chandre quickly stepped away from the table, feeling quite green. As politely as she could, she eased over to Shi and they slipped from the Hall, sprinting up to their room, Chandre grabbing a big metal bowl from a nearby table as they went.

They just made it, Shi slamming the door closed as Chandre hurled out the remains of the haggis into the bowl. Shi quickly joined her, and they vomited everything up until the rest of the night was spent dry-heaving.


	4. Day One

Something rammed against the heavy wooden door of their room, and Chandre groaned, rising from the tangle of Shi's limbs from where they had sprawled around the bowl of vomit. Rubbing her eyes, she stumbled over to the door, head pounding in time to the beats on the door, nose filled with the stench of half-washed bodies and puke.

Dumbledore stood at the door, and his eyes widened as he saw her. Glancing down, she realized that she was only wearing underwear. "Yeah?" she asked, wincing as her words echoed in her tender ears.

"I was just checking to make sure that you two were all right," the headmaster said, looking concerned. Shi staggered over to her, absently handing her the other half of a blanket he had pulled from the bed. "You looked pretty green last night when you were leaving."

"Just some pills we took to wake up yesterday," Shi mumbled. "Combat energizers. Could reanimate a corpse. And kill it again. They were wearing off." He grimaced, and rubbed his mouth. "We don't use them much."

Chandre coughed, and whirled around, racing for the bowl. As she heaved, Shi apologized and closed the door, walking over to her and holding her head as she puked, one hand stroking her hair.

She finished and wiped her mouth with a hand, shaking with fatigue and hunger. "What did he say?" she asked, looking up at her partner.

"We've got our first class today." Chandre groaned, and he patted her on the back. "Don't worry, kiddo. It's at one, and it's eight right now. We've got some time to sleep."

Chandre nodded slowly, head whirling. "I think I need a bath first," she muttered, looking at her vomit-encrusted hair.

Shi shook her awake gently, and she pulled herself away from the comfort of her pillows to peel open an eye at him.

"Rise and shine, sleepy-head," he cooed, and she punched him, head still whirling and throbbing in pain. He grunted, and touched her shoulder. "Ow. What was that for? C'mon. It's twelve."

"We've got another hour," she moaned, but he was relentless.

"We need to eat. And explore our classroom a little, or at least the student lists," he said. "Dumbledore dropped those off too." He waved a bundle of parchment in front of her eye.

She groaned again, but got up, dressing slowly and rebraiding her hair, slipping three daggers about her person from habit. Shi had already dressed, and sat on the bed, twirling two daggers in his hands. He looked slightly better, if a tad puffy about his cheeks and eyes, and his lips were slightly chapped and cracked. She scowled. He had probably taken some painkillers. Lucky him. They didn't work too well on her. She was allergic to just about any anesthetic not made on her homeplanet, even though she could withstand almost any poison for prolonged amounts of time. That just meant that the reaction knocked her out a little longer, as her body struggled to fight.

He got up after she had tugged the sleeves of her shirt over the armsheaths on her arm, hiding the flat daggers she always kept there, and he strode over to the door, walking about. She followed him, catching up easily, and they trotted, slowly, down the stairs, following their nose to the Great Hall, where lunch was being served.

They were late, but no one seemed to notice, and they quietly took seats side-by-side and dug into the food. Chandre ladled some stew onto her plate, and shoveled it into her mouth, chewing slowly and savoring before swallowing and taking another bite. Shi ate just as quickly, although both not fast enough to make themselves any sicker. She had finished with the stew and was moving over to some broiled broccoli and potatoes when Shi began spooning some fruit onto her plate. She glared at him, and gave him some vegetables, knowing full well that he wasn't much of a veggie fan. He glared back, but ate it, and they studied the roster of the students in their first class.

They were in and out of the Great Hall without having to do more than nod to other people, and slipped down the halls to their classroom. Pushing open the heavy wooden door, Chandre grinned. It was exactly what they had asked for. Mirrors surrounded three of the walls, leaving one bare with stone, and the floor was wood. Shi bounced up and down lightly, and the floor held him with the perfect amount of flex and spring and hardness.

"It looks like a fucking ballroom," he said, turning around in the center, staring up at the high ceiling.

"It's just what we asked for," Chandre pointed out, opening a door on the unmirrored side. It contained the weapons and armor they had asked for, from wooden swords, poles, bows and arrows (of the highest quality, Chandre checked), targets, broad mats, round wooden shields and padded armor for the students. Looking in the back, she discovered enough supplies to be able to mend anything that broke, and several steel swords, of various makes, along with some other, more interesting weapons. She found three sets of sais, six throwing stilettos, five maces, two double headed halberds, four flails attached to long poles, and other weapons. Shi joined her in the back room, which was big enough to be their bedroom, and whistled.

"Wow," he said. "They don't take things lightly, do they?"

Chandre hefted a wootz steel katana, studying the blade. "Balance is perfect," she said. "And look at this. Watermarked blade. The best you can get. Aside from the Master Forgers at home, of course, or the god-made swords."

Shi rolled his eyes. "Have you ever seen a god-made sword, Chandre? I swear, those are just hero-legends your people prattle on about."

"Aunt Sil's sword Tallagorin is god-made," Chandre pointed out. "And I think Nevermore is too. And Father's Thaddeus." Shi looked skeptical. "I'm serious! Every Swordmaster has two swords, a lesser sword and a god-made one. Of course, sometimes the lesser swords are god-made too, but they're all very good."

"Pull the other one, kiddo," Shi said. "All Swordmasters have at least one god-made sword? Come on."

"It's true!" she protested. "There's only about fifty Swordmasters on the entire planet. And I'm fairly certain that that's not as many god-made swords as there are out there. Three hundred years ago or so there were a lot more Swordmasters. Even twenty years ago there were about a hundred."

Shi just shook his head in disbelief. Turning, he bent down and exclaimed, "Hey, it's got some real steel helmets and some armor too!" He snickered. "When the hell is anyone ever going to use that?"

Chandre laughed too. "Here's some claw-hands," she said, fitting one over her hand. "About a class set. We can teach them to climb walls."

"Oh yeah, Dumbledore'd be real happy about that," Shi drawled. "His little students, training to be assassins."

"Climbing walls is a good skill," Chandre protested, but set the claws down. "All right, all right. So maybe that's not a good idea. I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"How's your head?" Shi asked suddenly.

"I've got a hangover the size of a hovercar."

"What about your hand?"

She flexed it. "About the same."

"Your back?"

"What would be wrong with my back? What is this, twenty questions?" Instinctively she twisted her head to one side as a dagger whirled past her, the hilt lightly brushing her cheek, and it slammed into the wall. Before it was completely past her, she had fallen into a defensive crouch, headache forgotten as her daggers flicked out into her hands. "Hey!" she yelped. "What the hell was that for?"

Shi grinned, and shrugged. "Testing your reflexes. Thanks for not firing a dagger back."

"I didn't want to kill you," she grumbled, standing up and brushing off her shirt, flicking off imaginary dust. "Apparently the sentiment is not returned."

He walked past her heading for his dagger, and she attacked, leaping at his back. He jerked the dagger out of the wall and whirled around, but she already had her dagger at his throat. He growled, and flung himself backwards. Quickly she slipped away from under him, darting out of the room as he fell onto the ground, the momentum too great from him to regain his balance. Something crashed, and he cursed, but sprang back to his feet and hurtled out of the little armory, pausing to stare at her, settled in a low crouch, one dagger held backwards, the other up. The tips glinted in the light of the room, and his lips thinned in a grin.

"Aren't you hurt?" he asked softly. "I might hurt something else, by accident." As he spoke, he attacked in a blinding flurry of arms and feet and daggers. She could barely make out what he was doing, he was moving so fast, and counted on him not actually meaning to kill her. Parrying his attacks blindly, she was aware of herself moving backwards, feet shuffling. Her head ached from the effort of trying to follow him, and she blinked, breath rattling in gasps.

"What's wrong?" he snarled, in full fighting mode. Suddenly he shoved her with his hands, a foot hooking around her leg. She fell with a cry. "Too hurt too fight? This is really pathetic, Chandre." He paused, standing over her, but a good distance away, so she couldn't trick him. Slowly he morphed back into his normal facade, the pleasant guy. "I mean, come on, kiddo. I've seen you kill a man with a broken leg and a sword through your stomach before. You must be getting weak." He sneered down at her, and she stared back at him, slowly getting angry.

He attacked again in a sudden fury, but she wasn't there. All of a sudden it clicked, and she rolled away from his attack, his daggers slicing down her back, missing by mere millimeters, and she twirled around, coming back low and fast, her hands moving in complicated patterns with her daggers, trying to get through his defenses, but he was on his A-game too. Something flickered in the corner of her eye, but it wasn't Shi, so she ignored it completely and concentrated on her partner.

His boot swept up to take her feet out, but she jumped, towards him, raising a foot and connecting in his chest, sending him flying backwards. His other foot crunched into her face as he twisted in midair, even then in somewhat control of himself, and she was sent sideways. Her body twisted around as she flew, and she ended up landing almost against the wall, one hand on the ground to balance herself, legs bent, ready to spring.

Someone gasped, and she turned, eyes widening as she saw the three students behind her. Their eyes were wide with surprise, and she sensed something at her back. Spinning around, she caught the dagger speeding at her back with a hand. The wrong hand, and she winced. Shi had seen the students just after he had thrown the dagger, but he knew she would catch it.

"Uh, um, is this the Combat Class?" one of the girls asked. It was the girl, Penelope, the Death Eater had caught. There were two, with one boy. "And, uh, should we leave so you can kill each other?"

"This is the Combat Class, and we were only practicing," Chandre said. "Just put your bags and wands in that corner, and sit in the center of the room. Try and form something of a semi-circle." With a flick of her wrists, her daggers slid back into their spring-loaded armsheaths. She sensed Shi silently padding up behind her, and felt the warmth of his body at her side. Quietly she handed him back his dagger, and he slipped it into his belt, at his back. She filed that location away for future references.

As the students moved, he asked softly, "You want this class, or me?"

She grinned. "All yours. You're the one on painkillers."

He glared at her, but walked to the front of the classroom, standing near the center of the room where the students had sat down. More entered the room, and Chandre directed them to lay down their wands and bags in the corner. Some protested over having to part with their wands, but she told them either to lay their wands in the corner or leave. All chose to lay their wands down. When the last student came through the door (she had been counting from the names listed on the roster), she walked around the class and leaned against the wall, in front of the classroom.

The students watched Shi, who was standing quietly, watching them until they finally quieted. "For those of you who don't know, I'm Professor Shindle," Shi said, "and that's Professor Zividia. Although most of you seem to know where exactly you are, I'd better reiterate for the dumber of you. This is the Combat Class. This is where you will learn how to fight with your hands, feet, whatever, in a hostile situation, and how to deal with that situation, whether it be Death Eaters or Muggles." He paused, and smiled sardonically. "Before I go on, I must say that this is a no-magic class." Some students looked shocked, and his grin sharpened. "No magic means no magic. That is for safety purposes, and because you are not learning magic in this class, but how to fight. If any of you do not agree with this, then you may leave. If either Professor Zividia or myself senses magic being cast in any form, the person casting the spell will be dismissed from this class. Permanently." He looked about them, as if studying each face, and relaxed slightly. The students relaxed with him, unconsciously.

"Now, guidelines. First off, clothing." He sighed, and continued, "We know full well that Hogwarts has a dress code of wizarding robes, but in this class we must insist that you wear something else. Sweats or loose pants are preferable, with t-shirts or shirts of some sort. Something you can move around in, that won't get caught or snagged. Girls, please no skirts. And shoes. Sensible shoes are sneakers, something you can run around in. That means no heels and no cleats. If you have long hair, it's a very good idea to pull it back or into a bun. Any questions on clothes? Yes?"

"Why shouldn't we wear our robes?" a boy asked. "We always wear them."

"Good point," Shi said. "We don't allow robes for the same reason the IASS Fleet doesn't allow long beards. It gives the enemy a very good hold on you. In a fight, that's not a good thing. It doesn't allow you to get away as easily." He paced slightly back and forth on the floor. "Moving on. This class only lasts a semester, so you won't be learning much more than the basics. Although," he held up a finger, "we won't be moving on until every single one you gets it. So it might be to the advantage of those of you faster learners to help the slower ones. If you don't get something or want extra training, you can also come to us after school.

"Mostly we'll be learning basic hand-to-hand combat, but there will be some homework." Everyone groaned. "It's simple, really. You need to be strong, so some sit-ups, some push-ups, and lots and lots of stretching each night. We'll be having tests on stretching once a week, because being limber is very important. Boys especially are going to have trouble with flexibility, so you'd better get on it. You'll also be learning, if we get to it, some pole work, and, possibly, the rudiments of swordplay.

"Now, you may think we're not going to be teaching you a lot, but our definition of basic unarmed is a lot more extensive than the normal. Of course, my recommendation, if you get into a really sticky situation, or just a situation of any kind at all that you might have to fight in, is to run away. Fight to get away, not to kill. Your attackers, I can almost guarantee you, will always be better armed, and they probably won't be expecting you to know how to defend yourself, so use surprise, and get the hell away."

"But running away is cowardly!" someone burst out.

Shi pinned the person, a white-blond boy flanked by two large goons, with a glare. "In this class, Mr. Malfoy," he said, "you pay respect to your teacher. No talking unless I call on you, or you are in trouble or hurt. And as to your rather rude exclamation, running away is not cowardly. We're not training you be warriors or soldiers or heroes. You're students and you are not trained to be heroes or soldiers. We're trying to help you learn how to stay alive for the longest possible time. Running into danger is foolhardy and just begging for disaster. That would be death, Mr. Malfoy."

He looked around to the rest of the class. "Playing the hero, when the situation does not call for it, can cause more deaths than if you just run. If you're outnumbered, run away. If you can't run, hide. The last thing you should do is face them. Now, roll call. If you don't want to continue in this class, just get up and leave. I won't be writing down names, and neither with Professor Zividia." When no one moved, he smiled disarmingly and said, "Honestly. We don't care if you don't wish to be here." No one stirred a muscle, so he pulled out the parchment from a pocket and began calling names. Every single student was there, and he folded the paper back up and shoved it into his pocket.

"All right. That bit of business done. Now, before we start to work, are there any questions you'd like to ask either myself or Zividia over there?"

A boy called Semus Finnigan raised his hand. "You said to run away if you were outnumbered. Why didn't you run away from the Death Eaters on the train? There were thirteen of them, and just you two." A lot the students murmured their assent.

Shi smiled. "Unlike you, we are trained to deal with those sorts of situations." Chandre rolled her eyes. They were the ones who generally made those situations. "The Death Eaters weren't suspecting us. They thought they were only surrounded by harmless students. A mistake that cost them."

"But you were outnumbered!" someone else exclaimed. Shi stared at the girl until she dutifully raised her hand. He called on her and she repeated the question.

"Not in the least," Shi replied cheerfully. He became more serious. "But none of you should ever try it. Death Eaters are not harmless. They're rather dangerous, and if they capture you, it will be more painful that anything you've ever experienced before. To them, torture is play, and death is a relief in their hands. If you see a Death Eater, even one, run away. They are far more powerful than most of you will ever be, and they've had years of experience honing their skills."

Another student raised his hand, and Shi nodded. "Where did you guys come from, off-planet? Do you travel the stars? Fight in intergalactic wars?"

Chandre stepped forwards, drawing their attention to her. "First off, there hasn't been an intergalactic war in at least five hundred years. Just bloody spats among powers. Second, space travel is not cheap. Unless you want to spend your life working in the lowest station on some crummy freighter pulling toxic waste, I don't recommend it. This planet is far too nice for travel in the stars. Most planets have their perks, but most are a lot like this one, some a lot more industrialized, with smog and sludge on the horizon and over the cities, and some are colonies, barely settled."

"How many planets have you been to?" another student asked.

"About ten, and at least fifteen space stations," Chandre said. "All for work, so we never get to sight-see. But I recommend Buliztha'ak. It has wonderful beaches."

"And acid-coated sea monsters," Shi added softly.

"What do you guys do, normally?" someone else asked.

"We contract out for short-term jobs," Chandre replied cryptically.

"The period's ending in about twenty minutes," Shi said, breaking off the questions. "So everyone up. Run about the room three times, no cutting corners, no dawdling." When the students were sluggish, he snapped, "Up up up." They leapt to their feet and began running. Chandre quickly moved into the center of the room, Shi joining her as the twenty students thundered around the rooms.

She winced as one boy, trailing the others, tripped over his own two feet and fell flat on his face. He got up, his face beet-red, and followed them, jogging even slower than before, slow enough that the forerunners lapped him twice.

While they were waiting for him to finished, both Chandre and Shi led the students for a series of stretches, indicating which ones were good to do for their homework, and then demonstrated what constituted a good push-up.

"There will be no push-ups on your knees," Shi announced. "On feet is the only way." He got down and demonstrated, while Chandre indicated how to do it. Finally they had each student do two sets of ten. The bell rang, and the students stumbled out, some almost obscenely tired, considering they had done nothing.

Some of the students looked back at them as they walked out, and one girl paused, and told her friends that she'd catch up with them. Penelope walked towards them, looking very, very ill at ease.

"Yes?" Chandre asked, looking over. She and Shi had been talking quietly about which students might need some more work, speaking in her native language to discourage eavesdroppers.

"Professor Zividia, may I speak with you?" the girl asked, glancing at Shi apprehensively.

He took the hint and backed away, tipping his chin up at Chandre, then towards the door. With a creak of oiled hinges he was gone, leaving them alone.

"Yes?" Chandre asked again, looking down at the girl, who looked promptly at her feet.

"Um, thank you for saving my life, on the train," Penelope said. "I-I thought you were going to ram the sword in my chest, but, I guess I was wrong."

Chandre felt uneasy. People didn't normally thank her for anything, especially not people her own age. "I wouldn't kill a student or let them be taken prisoner," she said. "But it was good that you held still. Pardon me for frightening you, or seeming like I thought your life meant little. Sometimes, when you fight, bluffing is all you can do. Were you hurt at all?"

"Some bruises," Penelope admitted. "It's nothing much."

"I'm sorry you were hurt. I hate it when bystanders get hurt," Chandre said. "I'm glad you came to speak with me, though. It's good to get it out of your system, and think about the pain, and the fear." Penelope looked down again. "It's perfectly all right be afraid, to be so terrified you can't move. It's not shameful at all."

Penelope looked up, her eyes filled with tears. "But you weren't afraid. You acted, and, and killed him. I didn't even move to save myself, I--" A tear crept down her face, and she looked mollified.

Chandre smiled, softly. "It's all right. Your reaction was perfectly natural. Don't be ashamed about how you acted or didn't act. It's not your fault that he chose you. Have any of the others been giving you a hard time?" She didn't need an answer, just looked at Penelope's face. "Ah. Well, here's a little secret. If they had been in your spot, they would have acted the exact same way. I'll bet not one of them, even the biggest of the boys, would have fought back. Remember that, when they tease you."

"You've never been helpless before," Penelope accused.

"Perhaps not exactly helpless," Chandre admitted. "But I've been terrified. I've seen people in their worst moments, scared shitless, sometimes literally." Penelope winced. "It's not very pretty. I've seen enough hostage situations to know that your reaction was completely normal. At least you weren't screaming. And you didn't piss yourself." She smiled disarmingly, and Penelope smiled too, slightly. Carefully Chandre touched her shoulder. "Feeling a little better?" She nodded.

"I-I had better get to class," she said. "Thank you."

Chandre shook her head. "No, thank you." Penelope looked at her oddly. "I don't get to play the good guy much." They headed towards the door, and Penelope picked up her things in the corner.

She paused at the door, and asked, "Um, c-could you--?"

"Teach you more defense?" Chandre asked. "Sure. Just come in after school or during lunch. Or in the mornings or really anytime that suits you. I have more time on my hands than I can handle. You might want to wait a week or two, when we learn the stuff in class."

Penelope nodded, and walked out the door. Chandre followed shortly, passing Shi, who was waiting, leaning against a wall, cleaning his fingernails with a dagger.

"She looked a little less disturbed. Good talk?" he asked, pushing himself off the wall and falling in step with her.

"She was just feeling ashamed at acting how she did," Chandre said. Shi nodded. After a while of wandering through the halls, he stopped and said, "I think I'm going to take a run around the lake. You want to come?" She shook her head.

"I still don't feel too well," she said, and he left with a wave of his hand. Quietly she walked through the halls alone, stopping at the library doors. With a shrug she went inside, and settled in a corner reading Various Monsters and other Creatures of Dark Magic. Dementers were on one page, and she read everything she could find avidly, engrossed in the stories of people who had escaped or fought monsters.


	5. Trouble Begins

"High block is like this," Chandre said, raising her arms to demonstrate as Shi punched at her face. "Middle block." He punched in the middle. "Low block." Finishing, she said, "Get in pairs, form rows and start practicing. To my count. High! Middle! Low!" She chanted slowly, moving through the rows. Shi paced through them as well, pausing to give instruction, adjusting one student or another stance, punch or block, utterly patient if they didn't get it.

They had done falling the week before, the first thing to learn. Next had come the proper stance, and then two forms of punching. Today was blocking. Tomorrow they'd do kicking, using perhaps just two types, maybe three, if they got it quickly. Next week would be movement, and then probably some mock fights. It all depended on how fast they'd learn. Chandre decided that she could never be a real teacher. Set lesson plans would drive her crazy. She liked a loose base of things to do.

Seeing vast improvement, and sufficient skill (to everyone but the boy who had fallen flat on his face the first day, Neville, but the kid was trying so hard that she cut him some slack, just this once), she called a halt to the lesson, and made everyone run eight laps around the room, then had them do sprints with lines of tape she and Shi had put on the floor. They groaned, but did it, and then went through a series of stretches. After the third day, Chandre and Shi had decided to have someone different each day lead the stretching.

After stretching, they went through another series of blocks, put in with some different stances and with another punch. Last, they had each student come up to them and demonstrate blocks and falls and punches on them, while they corrected them smoothly, giving each student hands on practice.

The bell rang, and the students filed out, some limping, even though this was the second week of school.

She and Shi were facing each other, practice steel swords up, ready to fight, when someone entered through the door. Lowering her sword, Chandre glanced up. Penelope walked through, followed by two of her friends.

"I-Is this a bad time, Professors?" she asked.

"Not at all," Shi said. "What do you want?"

Penelope's face reddened. "Uh, actually we wanted to ask Professor Zividia if she wouldn't mind giving the, um, three us of extra lessons." The other two girls giggled.

"Of course I don't mind," Chandre said. "When is a good time for you?"

"Uh, right now. Monday afternoons are always good," Penelope said. "Does that work for you?"

Chandre shrugged. "Well enough." She rubbed at her hand, which was still bandaged. It hadn't begun to heal yet, and kept cracking open at inconvenient times. From the feel, it was starting to bleed once more. Hopefully this time it wouldn't leak through the bandages. "How about just an hour this first time?" They nodded. "Right. Let's just review what we've been learning. Falling first." The girls grimaced. "I noticed that you haven't been doing it right."

They pulled out a mat and practiced falling, until she was confident that they had each gotten in down perfectly, even when she had done different things in throwing them or flipping them over her hip. Then she began to correct their punches until those were good enough. Not perfect; even her punch wasn't quite perfect yet. Shi's was, but all he had to tell her was to keep practicing.

"Remember, you want to hit with the first two knuckles. Anything else and you could really fuck up your hand." She smiled when one of the girls, Cho, twitched, and announced, "Seeing as this is a rather informal session, I'm not really going to be watching my mouth."

"Do you ever?" Shi asked from the front of the armory, where he was fixing the straps to piece of padded armor. It was giving him something to do, as she had told him that she needed him to demo moves. He had groaned good-naturedly, but done it.

"Anyhow," Chandre said, ignoring him. The girls giggled. "If my swearing bugs you, just say something. Feel free to ask questions without being called on, also. Now Pattil, strike a little higher, there you go. A tad more force. You can't hurt the air."

"Can you punch through wood like those ninjas on movies?" Pattil asked several moments later, after Chandre demonstrated the twisted punch better. "Like a four-inch punch?"

Chandre grimaced. "I can do it, but I have to have a lot of pent-up anger or else it doesn't work. Shi--I mean, Professor Shindle, can do it whenever he wants."

"Are you implying that I have a lot of pent-up anger?" Shi asked, sticking his needle demurely into the padded armor, neatly stitching up a strap.

"I'm not implying. I know you do."

"Ow. That really hurt." He was looking down at the armor on his lap.

"Tough."

"I wasn't talking about my feelings. I stabbed myself with this damn needle." The girls giggled again as he shook out his hand, and went back to sewing.

Chandre led them through some kicks before teaching them how to break away from certain holds. Shi gladly jumped away from the armor and helped her, mostly by being the one who got punched, kicked, and pinched, as he was the attacked. Chandre thought that was fitting, him being the attacker, as while she was strong enough for men of this planet, Shi was really more the size that their attacker would be. She was only an inch shorter, but her shoulders weren't as broad. Luckily for Shi, he was highly trained in all sorts of martial arts, and managed to avoid the worst of the pain, although once Penelope overreacted and slammed her fist into the tender tendon on his forearm. He winced, but said nothing, even though Chandre knew that that hurt like hell. He had once likened it to being kicked in the balls, and she would have agreed with him, if she had balls, because it hurt like a bitch.

After they mostly mastered most of the ways of breaking free of holds, they stretched, and then left, their hour over. Her work done, Chandre helped Shi finish up the rest of the armor, although her stitches weren't as neat as his, something he teased her endlessly about.

"Gods," he said, watching her struggle to thread her needle. "Thread to the needle. Even an amateur knows that, you dummy."

"Hey, I'm trying," she complained, finally getting it in. "Normally the hole is bigger." The thread fell out. Again. "Damn."

"It's a good thing this is the thirtieth century," Shi said, watching her as his fingers deftly stitched.

"Why?"

"You'd make an awful housewife. Geez, you can't cook without killing someone, you can't sew very well and you hate kids."

"I don't hate kids. The little monsters hate me."

"Anyway, thank the gods that there are other career choices open for you."

"Hey. I can run faster than you, and I kick your ass around the ring with a sword."

"But I can kick yours with my bare hands," he retorted.

"Not if you can't catch me."

"Point taken. I'd have to have set up a wire in advance."

"Hmm. Pre-meditated ass-kicking. Can't you go to jail for that?"

"Only if I get caught." He finished and sat back against the wall, staring out into space. Finally he rose and put his pile of armor into the armory, then came out and patted her on the shoulder before walking towards the door.

"Where're you going?"

He turned around, a grin playing on his mouth. His eyes danced. "There's a bar in the local town. I'm off for a drink."

"Any girls?"

"Don't know. Haven't been there yet, but Hagrid recommended the butterbeer. You're welcome to come, kiddo."

"No thanks. I know my being there tends to detract on your chances of getting laid."

He shrugged. "Yeah, that's true. People just can't see that we're two equally desparate friends trying to bang someone."

"So long as you don't bang a student."

"Uggh," he shuddered. "That's just sick. They're all babies." With a jaunty wave, he walked out of the door.

She had finished fixing the last strap and was walking towards the stairs to go to her room when she heard someone crying behind a door. Pausing, she pressed her ear against the door and listened, hearing softer tones, someone talking. It sounded like taunting, but the sobbing grew louder. An acrid smell came to her nose, and she held back a sneeze, just as there were the sounds of flesh smacking flesh.

Instantly she tried the knob and burst into the door after picking the lock. It wasn't too hard. Inside, Draco Malfoy and his two goons, Crabbe and Goyle, stood over a kneeling Neville Longbottom, who was sobbing above the carcass of a frog. The three standing whirled around as she entered, raising their wands at her.

"Lower your wands," she snapped. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing, Professor Zividia," Malfoy said sweetly. "Neville's frog here just died, and we were comforting him."

Chandre gently touched Neville's flabby cheek, turning it to the light. The mark was still red. "With an open palm? Really now. You might be able to pull that on Snape, Malfoy, but it won't work on me. Neville, how did your frog die?"

The boy looked up at her and sniffed, eyes huge and watering. Then he glanced at Malfoy, who stood just behind her, and bowed his head, whispering something.

"What?" Chandre asked. "Speak up, Longbottom. I'm not going to hurt you."

"H-he was old, and he just, he just keeled over," Neville said quietly, still not looking at her. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that he was lying. Chandre glared at the three other boys, and knelt beside the frog, flipping out a dagger, gently turning it onto its stomach. The metallic reek of Dark magic burned in her nostrils, and she sneezed. The scent burned her throat and the roof of her mouth, leaving a bitter taste to her mouth.

Rising, she slowly controlled her features, and flipped her dagger back into its sheath. "Harassment is something this school doesn't stand for, boys. Killing pets is another thing, and using a Confuctious Curse to do so is highly illegal." Her voice shook slightly from her effort to control it, and make it civil. Their eyes widened, and she nodded. "Yes, I know what spell you used, and if it was up to me, you'd have it used on yourself as punishment. Open that mouth to argue, Malfoy, and you'll wish you hadn't. Come with me, all of you. Longbottom, pick up your frog, and don't drop it."

She led the way through the halls and the four boys trailed her, too afraid of her, her reputation, or Shi to attack her or try to get away. They reached the eagle statue where Dumbledore's office was with little delay, and she practically spat the password, she was so pissed. You did not kill pets or torture people for the hell of it. That was one of her cardinal rules, and she hated bullies.

The statue rose and spiraled up, revealing a marble staircase. Entering the room, the boys following her, she startled Dumbledore, whose eyebrows rose, and his lips pursed, seeing her flashing eyes. "Yes, Professor? What happened?"

Chandre motioned Neville to lay the frog on the table. Dumbledore stared at it, knowing full well that spell it had been hit with. "I was walking down the hall when I heard someone crying," Chandre said, her voice calmer now, less shaky. She had someone to control her, in case she flew. "So I stopped, and I heard the sound of a slap. Entering, there was Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle standing over a crying Neville. His frog was dead."

"Why did you attack Neville's frog, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle?" Dumbledore asked.

"We didn't know it was his," Malfoy replied demurely. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Liar, liar, she hissed mentally. "We were just having some fun."

"With a Confuctious Curse?" Dumbledore's eyes stopped twinkling and grew very hard, and he seemed very old, but very stern. "This is a very grave misdemeanor, Mr. Malfoy. One punishable by expulsion. In fact, that is the only punishment grave enough for using one of the three Unforgivable Spells. Before you leave, Slytherin will be docked one hundred points for each of you. I shall tell Professor Snape of my decision. You three will wait in that back room over there."

"My father will--" Malfoy started, growing outraged.

"Your father does not run this school," Dumbledore said. "Go to the back room." Malfoy went back, followed by his goons. As he closed the door, he stared at her with a look of hate, which she returned with one of blankness. It was all she could do. He couldn't retaliate in any way against her. Nor could his father. Dumbledore would make sure they couldn't, and he was unable to, then she would protect herself. Malfoy did not know what he was unleashing, by attacking her, or even thinking of attacking her. The door snicked shut behind them, and she couldn't see them anymore.

"Nothing can replace the loss of your frog, Neville," Dumbledore said kindly, the twinkle returning to his eyes. The boy nodded, but his face was deathly pale, frightened beyond wits end. "Did you fight them?"

"They laughed at me," the boy replied softly, looking at his feet. He was very careful not to look at Chandre.

"Ah." Dumbledore leaned forwards in his chair. "But so long as you tried. You tried to save your frog, and that is all that matters. That you fought for something as small as a frog, even though you knew you would lose. You fought to protect another."

"But he died. And it's all my fault!" Neville all but wailed.

"No," Chandre said, more forcefully than she intended. They both looked at her. "It's not your fault, Neville. It is theirs."

"Their actions disgust you, Professor Zividia?" Dumbledore asked.

She looked at him. "Of course. That was torture. For pleasure's sake. There was no purpose behind it, just killing for the joy of killing."

The headmaster looked at her oddly. "You don't condone killing for pleasure?"

She stiffened. "Of course not." Then she relaxed slightly, and smiled ruefully. "But I would be a hypocrite to say that, wouldn't I? I may not enjoy it, but I do it because I am the best. Is that what you're aiming for, Albus?"

Dumbledore smiled back. "I had wondered why you are in the profession. You're not bloodthirsty enough. Not you nor Shi." She nodded, and he turned to Neville, who was dumbfounded by the exchange. "I am asking Professor Zividia's opinion on their actions because I value her input on matters concerning the worst of human life, Neville. While their actions are horrible, it drives it home when even an assassin is disgusted. It takes a lot for that to happen, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she replied.

Neville stared back and forth from headmaster to professor, the death of his frog slightly forgotten. "Assassin? You're an assassin?" he asked, voice squeaky.

"Professor Zividia is one of the best in galaxy," Dumbledore said.

"I-is Professor Shindle an . . ." It seemed hard for him to grasp the concept.

"He is," Chandre admitted slowly. So much for pretending to be just teachers from off-planet.

"I told you what Professor Zividia was, Neville, so that you would understand how grave their actions were. I want you to promise that you won't tell anyone about Professor Zividia and Professor Shindle's occupation. It's not something that should be spread about," Dumbledore said.

"I-If I don't, w-will you kill me?" Neville asked.

Chandre blinked. "Why would I kill you for something as dumb as that?" She bent so that she was on level with him, and he flinched. She winced. "Neville, even though you know what I am, you must act like both Shi and I are just professors. I don't care if you don't want to promise you won't tell, but please don't. We are here for a purpose, and this purpose is better kept without people thinking that their sons and daughters are being trained as assassins."

"Are we?" Neville squeaked.

Chandre smiled, and straightened. "In only a term? Of course not. It's just a self-defense class."

"Now run along, Neville, and take your frog to Hagrid and have a burial," Dumbledore said. The boy carefully picked up the tiny body and went out the door, glancing back at them with temerity.

"I wish you hadn't told him," Chandre said.

"He needs to see that even those with little morals can see evil, and hate it," Dumbledore said.

"It's not enough that I dislike Voldemort?" Chandre asked.

"Those who know better don't like him, or even hate him," Dumbledore replied. "And I should think that with that hand of yours, you wouldn't just 'dislike' him."

Chandre snorted. "He has a lot to answer for. My hand is far down the list. But this isn't about Voldemort and me, is it? It's about my morals. You think I don't have any. I must admit, I really don't, but there are things that really piss me off, and bullies just about top the list. I hate bullies, Albus, and they need to be taken down a peg."

"So you do have a sense of justice."

She smiled bitterly. "If I did, then I'd throw myself off a bridge."

"You judge yourself too harshly. Do you really hate what you are?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes I love it. It's a love-hate situation. For Shi, too. But I think that if we both had another option, we wouldn't change. There're not very many options open for people like us. We are ruined for normal work. We love the rush too much." She glanced up at the clock above Dumbledore's desk, and was surprised at the late hour. "May I go? I'm not really up for discussing morals."

"Of course. Thank you for noticing that, Chandre. Most wouldn't." Chandre shook her head, and left the room.

She passed Snape in the hall, walking quickly to Dumbledore's office. He didn't seem to notice her, but then, she didn't really want him to. He made her nervous, on a very low level. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, the hunger in his eyes.

Whatever it was, she slipped past him, and made her way up to her room. Shi hadn't returned, but she didn't really expect him to until much, much later. Maybe even not, if he got lucky. Quietly she undressed and climbed into the bed, lying in the dark staring up at the ceiling as she tried to sleep.


	6. Bad Dreams

After two hours, she knew that he probably wasn't coming back until dawn, and rolled onto her side, staring out of the narrow window into the dark night. Lucky him. The social confines of this planet didn't allow her to have sex with loose men unless they were on the way to being engaged, and the nearby town didn't even have a strip club with male dancers. It didn't have a strip club, period, and at the bar there weren't the type of men that appealed to her.

Not that she couldn't handle going celibate for four months, just that she really didn't like sleeping alone. Being with Shi was perfect; he had realized long ago that she was an insomniac, and slept with her without any questions or any chance that he'd make any moves towards her.

The half-moon had just passed over the window when her eyes closed, and she fell into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning, one arm flung across Shi's pillow, the other dangling from the bed.

The hall stretched as far as she could see, a long malignant tunnel that was black at either end, with only stone walls and floors and ceiling, boxing her in on all sides. She looked around, her hair brushing against her hips as she did so, and she set off down one end of the tunnel, moving cautiously, wondering where she was.

She was wearing a tacky black nightdress of gauzy fabric that contrasted vibrantly with her crimson hair, let loose and flowing. Uneasily she removed the strappy black heels from her feet, setting them on the ground, and continued down the tunnel.

As she walked, the silence grew deeper, until all she could hear was her heartbeat, pounding steadily against her neck. Slowly something chuckled, growing louder, growing close, and she whirled around, trying to see the person in the dark. Her hands searched herself for daggers, any weapon, but found nothing. The chuckling grew louder, dark and deeply evil, so dark that she shuddered, and felt something caress her cheek with a smooth, cold finger.

She gasped and jerked back, turning, but there was nothing. Touching her cheek, she saw her hand and gasped again. It was completely healed, with not even the shiny pink skin of a scar to tell it was there, just a calloused hand. The chuckling grew louder.

Turning, she took a step backwards, seeing the two red glowing eyes coming forwards, growing larger and larger and larger, until they were right before her, too big for any face and hovering in the air. The eyes danced and played before her eyes, the slit-pupils, much like her own, eyeing her up and down as the red orbs twirled around her. She twirled with them, following them warily.

"Quit fucking with me and show yourself!" she growled finally, growing exasperated and angry and wanting to get the hell out of here.

In an instant she was in a room, lying flat on her back, the nightdress off and hanging about her waist, her breasts bared. A fire lapped warmly against a stone hearth, and she turned her head, black silk sheets caressing her cheek. Cold, thin fingers ran down her sides, and she twisted her head, struggling as those hands traveled upwards, thumbs stroking her breasts.

With wide eyes she stared up at the skeletal face of Lord Voldemort, and she tried to struggled upright, but his hands pressed her down, and his lips pursed as he made shushing sounds.

"I've waited quite some time to find someone my equal," he purred, bending his head to lick at her ear with a forked tongue. She struggled, but he held her down. He might have been taller, but he was loads thinner, and she should have been able to shove him off, but it was like a cement block was on top of her, his hands squeezing like a vise. She froze, gasping in shock.

He moved his head up, tongue lapping at her ear, and suddenly his lips drew back and his teeth closed down, biting cruelly, and she cried out, feeling blood trickle down her ear as she pulled away, moving from him at last. Her hands found purchase in his hair and she grabbed it back, her knee rising up to kick him, and she rolled over, shoving herself on top of him and then over, toppling off him and the bed, hands rising to catch herself.

Panting, she staggered to her feet, searching the room for a door. He watched her from the bed, lying on his back, red eyes half-lidded. Desperately she pulled at the handle, but the door didn't budge, not an inch. There wasn't even a lock so she could pick it.

Starting at a noise from the bed, she pressed herself against the door as Voldemort rose fluidly from the bed, his black robes swirling about his feet, unbuttoned to his waist, showing off an almost cadaverous chest. His eyes burned as he approached, and she huddled closer to the door with apprehension.

"Scared, my dear?" he smirked. "You shouldn't be. I would never hurt you." Her hand crept up to her ear, touching the blood, and he smirked harder. "That's just a love tap. I have more of then, where those came from."

"Touch me and I'll kill you," she warned, growing angry. Her hands formed into fists.

He just came closer, and put his hands down on either side of her, trapping her into the door. Slowly he pressed close, but she put her hands up, pushing at his chest. That didn't deter him, and he leaned his head down to her, touching her ear, tongue lapping at the blood. Her breath rasped in her throat as he murmured, on hand moving from the door to stroke her breast, "Prophecy had it that I would find the perfect mate in one who hated me, yet bore my image." His hand crept from her breast and towards her eyes, stroking her closed eyelids gently, then forcing one open, making her face him. "Green," he cursed. "That can be changed."

She growled, low in her throat, and her right hand clenched into a fist. Voldemort pressed closer to her, letting his hand run down her body, slipping under the nightdress at her waist and traveling south. Summoning all of her rage and anger, she punched, hand flying through his stomach and out the other side, a close-range bullet. He gasped and staggered backwards, and she wrenched her hand from his body, eyes wide. She had only done that with wood before, and the blood on her hands was warm and sticky, tissue gathering on her knuckles, stomach acid burning on her hand.

Voldemort clutched his stomach and gasped, staring at her, surprised, and she moved towards him, hate blazing in her eyes. Before he could stop her, she had moved, and kicked sideways at his knee, shattering the bone with a satisfying crunch. He collapsed with a scream, and she whirled around towards the door, punching a hole just about the latch. Grasping the handle on the other side with her bleeding hand, she opened the door, and almost fell into a roiling blackness that threatened to envelope her and sweep her away into a fate more terrible than this.

She gasped and stepped back, right into Voldemort's arms. He gripped her cruelly, holding her hands at her chest, and she kicked and struggled, but he held her.

"You wanted companionship, so I came," he purred, clenching her chin with a hand and holding it towards the door. "Your mind opened to mine and I came. That is your only escape, my dear. Through the door and into death itself. Or to me."

"Fuck off," she snarled, feeling the beat of his heart through his thin chest. He began shaking her, rocking with her, and she struggled wildly, trying to get away from him and the bulge that was forming at her back, but he held her tight, not even letting her move as he shoved into a wall, pressing her tight against it as his lips and tongue ran along her shoulder line, his hips rocking into hers. Chains formed and held her to the wall, and she tried to get away from them, but they tightened, digging into her pale skin, their black barbs pricking her tightly as he pressed harder against her, his lust radiating in waves.

She opened her mouth to scream, as hands gripped her shoulders and shook her even harder . . . slamming her against the wall, breathless . . .

"--up," someone murmured worriedly above her. She jerked away, tried to rise and staggered back, the sheets wrapped about her body, pinning her arms down. Shi touched her shoulder, then her chin, lifting her head up meet Shi's anxious gaze. She stared at him, chest heaving, and finally she closed her eyes and looked away and cried in relief.

Gently he gathered her into his arms after unwinding the covers away from her, stroking her back tenderly, making incoherent noises of comfort. When she was calmer, he stopped rubbing her back and just held her, not moving save for his chest sighing up and down, his breath floating softly across the skin of her back.

"Thank you," she murmured, and he moved to go away, but she clung tighter to him, digging her head into his shoulder. "Please stay." Her throat caught, and she calmed herself with deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" he asked after a while. He knew very well that she never had nightmares, not unless she was accidentally channeling someone, by letting her guard down and dropping her shields slightly.

"I'll be fine," she replied, and slowly disentangled herself from him. His shoulder was damp from her tears. "Sorry." She wiped at her eyes and running nose.

He stared at his shirt. "It's nothing. What happened?"

"I, it was just a bad dream. I think," she said. "But it was so real."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I-I saw Voldemort," she replied, voice shaking. Slowly she related the events of her dream, and he listened quietly.

"Do you think he can really reach into your mind?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we're connected, from that weird death spell he tried to pull on me. Maybe it was just a dream." Her voice didn't sound truthful even to herself. She glanced up at her partner, and caught him mid-yawn. "I'm sorry. You should get some sleep."

He nodded and slid off the bed, undressing, she shifted back underneath the covers, brushing her hair to one side for comfort . . .

"Stop," Shi murmured, and she froze, hand on her hair. He turned on the light, and hopped onto the bed, touching her shoulder. She glanced down. It was streaked with blood, and had been hidden by her hair. His hand suddenly touched her ear, and she flinched away. "What the hell?" he asked, bending his head to examine it. "It looks like bite marks." She shuddered suddenly, and moved away from him. He grabbed her arm, stopping her, and asked, "Did he bite you?" She nodded, eyes wide, and they stared at each other in the dawning realization that it wasn't a dream. "Oh fuck," he groaned.

Removing her arm from his hand, she slid off the bed and padded over to where they had a tiny washstand. Quickly she scrubbed off the blood, and looked to her hand once she had finished. Trembling, she unwrapped the heavily bloodied bandages, and sighed with relief when she found that it was still the blackened, charred mess as before. It hadn't changed at all. Shi glanced over at her from where he was finishing taking off his pants, and breathed a sigh, staring at her hand.

"Come on," he said. "You need to get back to sleep." She stared at him in horror, already rebandaging her hand. "It's three in the morning. You need to sleep. I need to sleep." When she didn't move, he sighed and said, "You know I'll wake you up if you start to act weird, and you're not going to be thinking right if you put off sleeping."

Quietly she walked over and climbed into the bed, sliding beneath the covers, her back to him. Shi came in just after her, the bed dipping slightly. It dipped further as he leaned over to turn off the light, and settled back underneath the covers. Rolling over once she had heard his breath grow heavier, she found him sleeping with his back to her, the covers up to his chin, just like normal.

Trying hard not to wake him, she scooted over until she was within a handbreadth, and closed her eyes, breathing in his musky cinnamon scent. She wondered what he thought of her, smelling the scent of another woman and sex on him. Did he see her as an equal, or a baby like the students her age? She had thought she knew how they stood, in each other's eyes, but now she wasn't so sure. Was she a child to him? A babe he had to put up with? Were all those playful "kiddos" just a nickname, or something he'd call a child, someone he didn't respect? He was only five years older than her, and had about the same experience wise-wise, if far more time spent fighting for life and soldiering. Most of her years in the military had been spent in school.

Her last thoughts as she faded off to sleep were, would Voldemort kill him, in his pursuit of her? Was it only just a dream, or actually real? Her breathing slowed, the musky scent of her partner lulling her to a dreamless sleep, comforting and protecting her.


	7. Bets and Requests

That morning, before class, she stretched towards the back of the classroom, daggers in her hands as she limbered up for a pattern dance. Later she'd practice with Shi's sword, which was propped up near the armory door. Her partner was working with a student, finishing up on some advanced defense moves before sending her off to class, and he raised his hands, letting her punch them, full force. He nodded, and she punched them again, and he moved into a block as she did it again, then went on the attack.

Chandre went back to her stretching as the girl shrieked in alarm, not ready for his attack, and heard his patient murmur of explanation while she settled into her first pattern dance, standing head bowed, one foot slid behind her, holding her daggers with the blade painting up so they touched her forearms.

Suddenly she burst into a spinning kick, landing cleanly and transferring her energy into a smooth leg sweep, daggers flashing as she swung them at imaginary foes, in a slice-stab-thrust movement while her feet carried her to and from the phantom-foes as the pattern demanded.

Her concentration was completely on the dance itself, so she didn't see Shi watch with his student, quietly pointing out her moves, before sending the student off, their lesson long over. She twisted around, trembling with suppressed energy and unused anger, moving around to sweep her blades down when a sai jerked past her nose, coming within inches.

"Wha--!" she sputtered, ducking under another blade and instinctively slicing up, but her assailant wasn't there.

Shi used her moment of confusion to his advantage, dancing past her and in front of her, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "What was that for?"

"Thought you needed someone to practice with," he said, eyes sparkling with something like glee, and lunged forwards, one sai disarming her belated attack, the other coming low and nicking her side. Fabric ripped, and she snarled, slamming her boot into his shin. He danced away, limping slightly, a grin playing on his face.

"You're getting slow," he taunted. "I cut you."

She darted for him, but he jerked back, letting a sai just slide along her back as she passed, then helped her along with a hearty kick. She landed with a thud and rolled to her feet, daggers in her hands. Something trickled down her back, and she had a feeling that it wasn't sweat.

"Cut you again," he teased, twirling his sais in a complicated pattern.

"You!" she snarled, outraged, and charged, but was blocked by his sais as they whirred and flashed, and her daggers were ripped from her hands to fly across the room, landing on opposite sides. She stumbled to ground and swept her boot around, catching him in the knee. He fell, but rolled back to his feet at the same time she did, spreading his arms and daring to her attack him, grinning lopsidedly.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she asked, anger fading fast into cold calculation. So he wanted to kick her ass, eh? Her gaze flicked underneath his arm to the armory, where his sword lay.

His grin became even more lopsided, and he drew a little closer, still slightly cautious. "Yeah, I'd say so," he said. "You're no match for me unarmed. I'd give up if I were you."

"Right. Then you'd win," she said. Sometimes when they fought or practiced they'd make bets. It looked like this was something of the same. They could set their bets now. She winced. Her odds were pretty bad, but maybe she could even them . . . "What would you do, if you won?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'll think of something. Make you dance with only me at the upcoming Yule Ball, for one . . . maybe kiss all of the Professors, for another . . ." He shook his head. "Nah, too tame. Watching you teach a class naked be funny, slightly cruel, but funny. But that's too hackneyed." He grinned at her devilishly. Their bets were often quite outlandish, but that grin made her falter. "I know. You can give Snape a blow job. I've seen how he looks at you."

She froze in horror and her jaw dropped. "That's downright sick, Shi!" She glanced at the sword again. "All right, I accept." He smirked triumphantly. "But if I win, it's gonna be you giving him the blow job."

He laughed. "Sure. Like I'd lose," he scoffed, and lunged towards her chest.

She jerked away, cloth tearing as it caught her sleeve, and she hooked a foot around his, tripping him up. Not waiting from him to regain his balance or attack him when he was off, she sprinted for the sword, and heard a growl behind her, and the sound of someone jumping close behind. Too late to dodge, she yelped as his arms closed about her waist, and slapped her hands against the ground as she fell, rolling into him and grabbing his hands with hers, knee in his chest. Shoving one of his hands away, she fought like mad to get loose as he fought like mad to hold her there and position a sai or two at her neck. Breaking free, she rolled away and lay there for a moment to catch her breath, watching him as he nursed his jaw.

"Ow," he said, and rose, wincing slightly.

She rose as well, and saw that he was once again between her and the swords and well aware that that was her target. Taking a step, she grimaced in pain, arm and leg aching along with her side. Rolling her shoulders, she faced him and cracked her knuckles, trying to look menacing. He just shook his head slowly, daring her to try and pass.

Moving as quickly as she could she feinted left and then right, catching him as he lunged to the right and falling to the ground, scrambling to her feet as she slid to his left and snatched his sword. He whirled around and swore, attacking her in full fury before she had a chance to unsheathe it. Quickly she raised Shi's sword to the blow and lashed out with a knee, catching him in the stomach and knocking the breath out of him. He dropped his sais in pain and doubled over on the ground, wheezing as he tried to roll away.

She sprang forwards, unsheathing the sword and holding it against his neck in one fluid motion, drawing a line of blood. "Kill," she hissed, triumphant. "You have done the male thing before, right? Although I think Snape can show you a few tricks . . ."

His eyes narrowed as he gasped for breath, and suddenly two daggers were in his hands, trapping her blade between them as he shoved up from the floor, toppling her to the ground. Her sword was knocked from her hands as he straddled her, placing the daggers against her exposed neck as her hands flew up and her boot dagger touched his neck.

"Cheater!" she cried. "I killed you!"

"Got sent back," he grinned. "Let's see what Snape can show you, eh?"

"Yes, what can I show her?" Snape asked from the door.

Shi looked up, face reddening slightly. "Er . . . your collection of brussel beans," he said quickly. "You need something, Severus?"

Snape flinched as Shi used his first name. "I was hoping Professor Zividia could tell me why, on top of three hundred points missing from Slytherin's score, three of my students, including my best, are being expelled. That is, if you aren't too busy being cut to pieces."

Shi gave her a questioning look, but stood up, flicking his daggers back into his armsheaths and holding out a hand for her. She took it and rose, wincing and holding her side.

"Didn't Dumbledore tell you why they were expelled?" she asked him. "It was his decision, not mine. I merely found them after they had cast the Confuctious Curse, killing Neville Longbottom's frog."

"Longbottom shouldn't even be in this school. He's a Squib," Snape snarled. "I still see no reason why three of my finest students were expelled. You can't even prove that they cast the spell. It is too powerful for them."

"But it was cast," Chandre pointed out, growing angry with him for berating her. "Even if I can't work magic, I can sure as hell sense it, and that spell has a particular scent. I'm not quite sure who cast it, but I'm pretty damn sure I know who it is."

"Even if they did cast the spell," Snape said, "they didn't mean it. It was a harmless joke."

"'A harmless joke'?" Chandre repeated, incredulous. Shi was staring at them both in confusion. "It was one of the Unforgivable Curses, Snape! It killed a frog. If they were any stronger, they could have killed the boy."

"They were joking," Snape said.

"I'd like to hear you say they were joking when they go over to Voldemort's side," she said, and he flinched at the name.

"Don't say the name," he hissed.

"What, Voldemort?" she asked, innocently, and got another flinch. He glared at her with anger. "Listen up, Snape, because I'm only going to say this once. I despise bullies, and those boys are bullies. They picked the wrong person to mess with and so have you."

"Are you threatening me?" Snape asked, face reddening.

Chandre started towards him, and he took a step back. She smiled evilly. "You haven't even begun to see threatening," she growled.

Snape regained himself, and his upper lip curled. "I know what you were trying to do," he said, voice taut with anger. "You were trying to have a little bit of justice to make up for the pain and suffering you cause. Well, I know what you are, Zividia, and you disgust me. Your kind are as bad as him. Even worse, because you get paid for what you do. A regular whore."

"At least I'm not ashamed at what I've done," she snapped. He lost all composure then and there. His past as a Death Eater was something he regretted, although he had righted some wrongs by turning spy.

"I have done greater things than you have ever dreamed!" he roared, and turned on a heel, marching out of the room. He snarled and cursed at something outside the door, and there were the sounds of several someones stumbling, then all noise faded.

"I take back my bet," Shi said wide-eyed, dabbing at his bleeding throat with a hand. "It would be altogether too cruel."

Chandre glared at him. "No shit, Sherlock," she growled. "Besides. I won."

He raised his hands. "Don't get mad at me. I'm just an innocent bystander." She snorted sarcastically. "Come on, kiddo, what's one more enemy to the list? Really? What's that?" He cocked his head towards the door, and snapped, "Whoever's lurking out there, come in this instant."

Three students stumbled inside, their eyes wide when the saw the blood on the assassins. Chandre almost groaned when she saw who they were, three of their students: Ron, Harry and Semus.

"Did he do that to you?" Ron asked, jaw agape.

"No," Shi replied curtly. "Why are you here, and not studying?" He glanced at the clock. It was lunch.

All three looked down, embarrassed to have caught teachers arguing. "We want you to teach us more. How to defend ourselves," Harry said softly. "You said you would, and you teach others, and after what happened to Neville, we decided that we wanted to learn more than what you're going to teach in the class."

Chandre caught Shi's eye and walked out of the room. She really couldn't handle anything at the moment, she was too keyed up. That man made her angrier than most people could even hope to. Shaking with rage, she paced up and down the hall, then went for a short walk, trying hard to calm herself, but every time she thought of him she got hot with anger.

She made it back to the classroom just as the boys were leaving, and they walked past her without seeing her. Shi walked out moments later, and saw her standing in the shadows.

"Feel a little better?" he asked. She nodded, then shook her and, for good measure, rolled her eyes and shrugged. He grinned. "Good. We should get something to eat, and maybe clean up the blood."

"You could try to not cut me, next time," she said.

"Move a little quicker." They trotted up the stairs, went to their room and changed. Shi didn't bandage his neck, the wound wasn't too deep, but the one on her side was deep enough that she wrapped it up, and they marched back down the stairs for lunch.

The rest of the day passed smoothly enough, as did their classes, although there seemed to be a lot of muttering and grumbling from the Slytherin students, who were completely up to date on Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle's expulsion.

After dinner, Shi went back down to the bar for a drink, promising that he'd be back before it got too dark, and Chandre walked up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. At the portrait of the Fat Lady, the passageway, she said, "I'm Professor Zividia. One of my students is in there, and I'd like to speak with him. May I enter?"

"Of course," the Fat Lady replied jovially, and swung open.

Chandre entered quietly, drawing little attention to herself, although normally she supposed the presence of a teacher might herald some shock or consternation. Most of the students here were younger, though, and she and Shi only taught fifth years and up. There were only ten Gryffindor students in their classes, and Chandre didn't see any of them, although she spotted Hermione bent over a pile of books at one of the tables.

Wandering over to her, she drew the attention of some people, who promptly stared then looked away. Clearing her throat when she reached the table, she stared politely as Hermione held up a finger, finished her sentence, looked up, and was completely mollified when she realized that she had kept a professor waiting.

"Oh, sorry, Professor Zividia," she said, face flushing. "What do you want?"

"Do you know where Neville Longbottom is?" Chandre asked.

"He should be upstairs in the boys' dormitory," Hermione said. "Or in the library, or burying Trevor, his frog, but that should be over, by now."

"And his dorm is . . .?"

"Third on the left," Hermione replied.

"Thank you," Chandre said, and walked up the stairs. Neville wasn't in his dorm, so she wandered back down the stairs, in no hurry whatsoever, and towards the library. He wasn't there, so she went back towards the tower, running into Finch, the groundskeeper, on the way. He glared at her and muttered as she almost ran over his cat, Mrs. Norris, and she apologized to the cat, not the man, and continued, not finding Neville heading back towards the tower. Night had fallen, so she didn't think that he would be at a burial, and she headed towards the library, to read something, by way of the classroom so she could lock up, when she bumped into Neville just leaving the direction of the classroom, looking slightly disappointed.

He spotted her before she him, and stumbled, dropping his books. Looking up sharply, she saw him flustering about on the floor, scrambling to pick them up. "Ah, Neville, just the person I was looking for."

He looked up, and his face reddened. She bent to help him pick up his books, and handed him a stack. His inkwell had burst, splattering over the floor and some of his books, and she took out a bloodstained handkerchief and wiped off a cover. He blanched when he saw the stains. "Don't worry, it's clean," she assured him, but he didn't look assured. "Now, do you have a minute? I need to speak with you."

"I-I was looking for you, Professor," he said. "So I guess I have a minute."

"Good." She sighed, and said, "Your performance in class has been less than satisfactory. I know you have been trying, but it seems you need more help."

"I was going to ask you for some private lessons," he said, almost mumbling. "Maybe if I wasn't so clumsy Trevor wouldn't have died."

"The world is full of maybes," Chandre replied. "What it needs are some cans or dos. I'm perfectly willing to give you some private lessons. What time is good for you? Preferably not Mondays or Wednesdays after school, though."

"Uh, how about Thursday after school?" Neville asked.

"Tomorrow? Sure. How about an hour and a half before dinner, to give you some time for homework?" she asked. "You've got class that day, too." He nodded. "Perfect. Then I'll see you tomorrow."

She walked away. "Uh, Professor Zividia?" Neville called, and she turned around, a questioning look on her face. "Um, how many years have you been an, uh--?"

"Assassin? Since I was fifteen." She supposed that sounded better than two.

"How old are you?" He seemed confused.

She grinned. "It's rude to ask someone his or her age," she told him. "Good night."

Shi came back before her, as she had gone into the library and finished her book on monsters, sitting in a corner and reading. She hadn't had much time to do so, in the recent past, and she had to admit that it was a pleasure, letting herself be absorbed into the story.

He was also in bed, fast asleep, when she entered the room, startling him awake, dagger in his hand. Seeing her, he grumbled and went back to sleep. She soon accompanied him, tucked warmly under the covers. She didn't dream again that night.


	8. Running in the Dark

Harry, Ron and Semus wandered in just after she and Shi had finished practicing swordwork, and he took them into a corner of the room, asking her if she was going to be around to be a test-dummy for them. She shrugged, and sat down, watching them. Their lesson took two hours, and afterwards, Harry asked them if they were going to the Quidditch game that was taking place in a week. Apparently he and Ron were playing. They nodded, and the boys were just walked out when Neville walked in. The boys greeted him, and Chandre nodded.

"Put your stuff in the armory," she said. "It'll be safer there."

Shi asked her if she needed him at all, and she shook his head. He wandered off, to do whatever it was that he did when she wasn't with him and he wasn't going to a bar to pick up someone. Neville looked somewhat nervous, so she smiled disarmingly.

"First off, what exactly do you want from a self-defense course?" she asked.

"I want to learn to fight," he said simply.

"O-kay. I think that's a given. How do you want to fight? I've decided that you're a lost cause for the type we're trying to teach in the class." His face fell, and she smiled. "Don't worry about it. You'll still have some sort of proficiency, but you won't ever be as good as, say, Harry or Ron." Those boys were getting very skilled, she had observed, watching them with Shi.

"I'll never be as good as them," he muttered. It must have been a sore spot for him.

"You can be better in some things," she said.

"Like what?" he asked hopelessly.

"Knife fighting," she said, flicking out a dagger from her arm sheath. He jumped back and yelped.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"Easy." She rolled up her sleeve and show him the armsheath. "It's spring-loaded so it can just pop out, and the blade points down, see? So it drops down into my hand and I just grab the hilt as it falls."

"Don't you cut yourself?"

"Nope. Although some people position the hilt down, so they don't." She slipped her dagger back into its slot and rolled down her sleeve. It fit tightly and snugly over the sheath, but didn't show it at all. Neville was impressed.

"Can you throw those?" he asked.

She nodded. "See that crack in the door?" He nodded, and she flicked a dagger out of her arm sheath and snapped her wrist. The dagger flew and embedded itself in the exact spot she had pointed out. Neville whistled.

Coming back after pulling it from the door, she said, "Just so you know, knife work is the dirtiest, lowliest type of fighting there is. It's the kind of fighting that the cheaters and lowlifes whip out when they're beat from the good guys." His face was blank, so she asked, "Haven't you ever seen those vids?"

"Vids?"

"Oh. You don't have them here. Uh, movies?" He nodded. "But, for those with a disadvantage, be it size, strength or speed, knives can level up the playing field."

"Is that why you use them?" he asked.

"Me? Hell no. I can beat the shit out of practically all bar-toughs with just my fists," she said. "They're idiots. But to sure, in some fights I pull a knife, although in most cases, where you're not trying to kill someone, it's not a good thing to whip out. People tend to freak out and overreact." She walked into the armory, and he followed, hesitantly.

Finding the daggers, she felt each pair until she found one that not only matched, but the balance was right. For beginners, that was a good thing. She handed them to him, and he took them, his eyes wide.

"I'm pretty sure you can't wear those just in school, but while we're here you can. You can put them . . ." she looked around and pulled out a set of armsheaths, "here. Strap these on, and we can practice pulling them out. You'll probably cut yourself a couple of times before you get the hang of it, so have a handkerchief ready. Now, to practice, let's go outside."

"Why outside?"

"Well, there's trees you can thrown those at, and I'm getting sick of seeing the same four walls every day."

Once outside, in a fairly secluded stand of trees on one side of the castle, near the lake, she began showing him how to stand with a knife, and the basic slashes and stabs, stressing the need for speed, something he didn't have. Having practiced enough knifework for the day, with only twenty minutes before dinner, she worked on his hand-to-hand combat, showing him several little tricks that worked well against bigger, stronger people. Then she sat him down and showed him the very basics of finding his core, the force that drove all life. Finding it, she said, helped give the person balance, if they knew exactly where they stood.

Lastly she took him on a short run, going slow enough for him and barely enough to get her breath worked up, but he was sweating heavily and making sounds like he was about to die. Before sending him off to dinner she took the daggers, telling him to find some sticks and polish them and use them as practice daggers.

Two weeks later she ran along the narrow trail around the lake, breath puffing in white clouds. Peace and silence reigned on the opposite site of the lake, where she could view the school without being bothered by anyone. Few people took the path this far, all the way around, which made it the ideal path to run.

Pausing for a moment to stare across at the dipping sun, she sighed and went on, trembling to go faster, farther away. She was beginning to feel caged in here, in this school, and luckily in several weekends it would be possible to get away for a day or two, to get away and change scenes. Even this path was getting old; she could see the tracks she had left from the day before when she had run here, and Shi's footprints too.

The muscles in her thighs bunched as she neared a fallen log, and she leapt over it, feeling the cold wind rushing through her hair and chilling her ears and cheeks. Landing smoothly on the other side, she ran faster, driving herself to the absolute limit. She was so intent on going faster that she almost didn't see the other trail coming from the main one. Without thinking, she took it, intent on following it to the end. Sometimes one had to do things like that. She enjoyed taking a road and going to its very end, finding its limits before moving on to another and doing the same. It was fun to see where she ended up, and although the woods closed around her, she wasn't alarmed. This part of the area around the school might be the Forbidden Forest, but it didn't scare her. She was a lot more dangerous than anything else in these woods, and she was armed with daggers. Not that she looked very dangerous, so she kept on her toes.

Her shoulder blades prickled several times as she ran, and she felt eyes on her, but no one attacked, and the new trail connected to another one, which led over a fallen log on a stream. Crossing the log after testing it, she went on, curious to see where exactly it would lead.

Her run slowed to a walk as she went on, more intent on exploring than breaking an ankle, and the night slowly blackened out what parts of the sky she could see through the thick trees. Night creatures came out and started chirping, and branches and twigs and leaves cracked about her, causing her to jump at each noise, feeling the presence about her.

Just when she was about to turn back and take the trail again some other day, she smelt smoke, and hurried towards it, moving silently and nearly invisibly through the trees, her pupils expanding to see in the dark.

The trees thinned slightly as she came, and she blinked, recognizing Hagrid's cottage. A dog the size of a large pony bounded over to her, barking and drooling, and she stepped back before realizing it was only Fang, Hagrid's dog. Fang recognized her at about the same time, and began to wag his tail. She patted his head, and the half-giant himself came around the cottage, to see what the noise was about.

"Ye're not supposed to be in there--oh, Chandre, never mind," he said.

"Hello Hagrid," she said cheerily, stepping away from Fang.

Hagrid saw the mud running up her legs and covering her shoes. "Er, what were ye doin' in the Forest?" he asked.

"Running," she replied.

"From what?"

"Just running," she pointed down the way she had come, and was surprised that the trail was covered up again. "There was a trail there that branched off from the main one around the lake, so I took it."

"Ye know that's dangerous, don't ye?" he asked, doubtfully. "Something coulda attacked ye, or worse. It's late. Bad things come out after dark."

She shrugged. "That's the usual time for monsters, isn't it? After dark. Well, I'd better get back to the castle."

Hagrid shook his head, but waved and she lifted a hand, then trotted up the hill to Hogwarts, seeing no students about. Few people went out of the castle after dark on weekdays, and little more on the weekends, mostly because being out after dark in fall and the winter was off limits except on Hogmeade weekends, and even that was frowned upon.

That night Voldemort came again, and she woke up gasping, Shi shaking her shoulder and then holding her tightly before he let her go. Her hand had started bleeding again, and she wrapped it back up with a shaking hand, Shi watching her from where he sat on the bed, gray eyes filled with worry.

Slowly she climbed back in beside him, but didn't fall back to sleep. She spent the rest of the night watching his shoulders rise and fall as he breathed, sound asleep.


	9. Shi's Admirers

Chandre raised her eyebrows as a group of girls walked into the library, and stopped in the alcove the row over from hers. Trying not to groan aloud, she went back to her book. It turned out that the library had a whole section on dementers and other magical creatures closely allied to the Dark Arts, and she had borrowed a stack and found an almost completely unpopulated section of the library. Or so she thought. It seemed that that alcove was a regular spot for the girls, as they giggled and gossiped and giggled some more, mostly talking about hot boys in the school and their crushes.

Listening, Chandre rolled her eyes. It seemed that no matter the type, human girls would always gossip. She had done it when she was younger and had had a group of girls her age to hang out with. Shi wasn't much of one for gossip, although he did like a juicy tidbit now and then. It just wasn't the same with him, though, as he would never, ever in a million years submit to a pedicure unless it was for a job, and he didn't wear make-up for fun. Chandre sighed, and tried to go back to her book, but they were getting a little louder, and random shrieks and squeals would issue from Row 14, followed shortly by shushes.

Gritting her teeth, she told herself that she would not yell at them, and struggled going back, but every time she fell into the book a squeal would issue forth. Finally she gave up, closed the book, and leaned back against her alcove, eavesdropping shamelessly. She was a teenager, after all, and there were some hot guys at the school, even if they were not quite her type.

Shi walked into the library just then, wandering aimlessly. The girls quieted, then began whispering.

"He's so hot," one whispered. "I mean, for a professor. Most of them are old and wrinkly, but him, oh my god."

"Too bad you didn't take his class," another whispered back. "Then when he corrected you he'd be touching you." She sighed dreamily. "I wish I had taken the class."

"Goodness guys!" a third exclaimed. "He's a teacher! You shouldn't think that about him."

"But look at the way he fills out his pants," the second said dreamily. Chandre bit her fist so she wouldn't snicker. No question there who they were talking about.

"Ew! Get your head out of the gutter," the third said, although it was pretty clear she wasn't all that disgusted. "And quit thinking about him. He's taken. By Professor Zividia." Chandre froze, wondering if they had seen her, but they hadn't. Shi stopped in front of a row almost opposite from her, and pulled down a book from the shelf, reading it for a while before looking at another.

"Most of the boys in the school are in love with her," the first said. "I think it makes it hard for the ones with girlfriends. I wonder how old she is, anyway?"

"Who cares? Do you really think she's with Professor Shindle? I've never seen them kissing or acting all smoochy," the second asked the third.

"Of course they're together, dummy. They're always with each other."

"Omigod, here he comes," the first said, her voice rising high with excitement.

Chandre glanced over, and saw that he had spotted her, and was walking nonchalantly over. Quickly she gestured for him to pretend like she wasn't there, and jerked her thumb at the girls. His gaze flicked over to them for a second and he reached her row, turning his back to Row 14 and pulling a book from the shelf. The girls peeked through the holes in the shelves, and he ignored them, dropping one hand down below their line of sight and signaling to Chandre.

She signed back, taking care not to attract their attention, that the girls in the next row were talking about him and she'd meet him later. He signed his assent, grinning with amusement, closed the book and walked out of the library, swaggering slightly for the girls in the row. They swooned, and asked each other excitedly if they thought he had noticed them.

Then they got it into their heads to see what book he had been looking at, and Chandre took that as her cue to leave. Gathering her books, she snuck out of the row before they came, and handed them back to the librarian, who smiled stiffly, she did everything stiffly, and Chandre left, wandering down outside, where Shi had said he'd be waiting for her.

It was snowing, and she crossed her arms, shivering, and quickly trotted out to meet him. He was wearing a coat and laughing at her in her long-sleeved shirt. She glowered at him as she approached.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Got a job over the week-end," he said quietly, wrapping an arm about her and pulling her closely as they walked along, partly to keep her warm and partly so they could talk without being overheard. "Simple thing. News of an assassination plan for the Minister of Magic on Saturday. We need to stop it."

"Dumbledore knows?" she asked, just as quietly. They looked around to make sure that no one was listening. Just in case, he switched to her native language.

"He's the one who told me."

"Any idea on who it is?"

"Not a clue. It may be the Death Eaters or a group close to them, but most likely it's just some sot hired by them to knock off Fudge. Do you want to leave tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow afternoon after class. Good thing it's a Hogsmeade vacation. No one will notice we're gone."

He grinned, and put his mouth near her ear. "So, what were those girls saying about me? Am I the hottest guy in the school or what?"

Chandre pulled away, laughing. "The grossest," she replied. "They say you need to stop groping them during class."

He grinned. "None of them are in our class, kiddo. Nice try." He spread his arms. "What else were they saying?"

"Well," Chandre chuckled, "they think we're a couple."

His jaw dropped, and then he tilted back his head and started howling with laughter. She joined in, highly amused, and they clutched each other, trying to hold themselves up as they shook with laughter.

"Are you two all right?" Dumbledore asked, stepping up beside them.

They broke away, but kept their arms on each other's shoulders for balance, snorting with laughter. "Just fine, Albus," Chandre snickered. "Right, Poochie?" She tickled his chin, and he burst out laughing again, shoving her hand away.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "'Poochie'?" he asked. "Am I missing something?"

Slowly they calmed down, and Shi straightened his jacket. "Nothing at all," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "Chandre just told me of a," he coughed, trying to keep a straight face, "blatantly false rumor that was spreading about the school." He became more serious, falling into business. "We're leaving tomorrow afternoon."

Dumbledore nodded. "Good. And, I know I don't have to tell you two this, but just remember, please use discretion, and, don't get caught. It could be taken the wrong way."

Chandre patted his shoulder. "Don't worry. We're pros at this sort of thing. Do you know where it will be?"

He shook his head. "Not a clue, but Saturday afternoon there is a Halloween Dance being held at the Dragon's Egg. I'll have my people there of course, but I want you for . . . extra coverage."

"Not a problem," Shi said. "Is this place dressy?"

"It will be, yes," he replied. "Do you have dress robes?"

"We will," Shi promised. "And we'd better pack. Do you have transportation for us?"

"Yes. Snape is taking you to the house," Dumbledore said. Chandre grew very, very still. "Meet him outside his classroom after school." He shivered. "It's cold out here. Aren't you freezing?"

"Just a little," Chandre replied. She and Shi had separated once they had stopped laughing, and her arms were crossed across her chest for warmth. They all headed in together, and separated at the door, Dumbledore going in one direction, them in the other.


	10. A Little Job on the Side

Snape was glowering when he saw them walking down the hall towards him, knapsacks slung over their shoulder. He glowered even further when he realized they were wearing wizarding robes, and looking completely natural. Nothing about them suggested that they had anything wrong, and they even had fake wands in their pockets. The only thing that was slightly abnormal was the sword strapped about Shi's waist.

"You're late," he said, looking at Shi.

"Not that late," her partner replied. "So how are we going to do this?"

Snape picked up a knapsack from the floor, and hefted it over his shoulders. "First off, we're going to Hogsmeade, where we can Apparate."

"I thought you could only do that with one person," Chandre said.

He scowled at her. "There is a way for more," he snapped, and turned away. "Come on." Leading the way, he tapped his wand on the hump of a statue of a hag, and it slid back, revealing a tunnel. Carefully they all climbed inside, and it slid shut, leaving them in darkness. Chandre's eyes adjusted quickly, but Snape muttered, "Lumos," and the tip of his wand illuminated, brightening the walls.

They walked for a far distance, none of them talking, and finally the tunnel ended with a ladder and trapdoor. Climbing the ladder, Snape opened the trapdoor and climbed out. Chandre followed last, and had to scramble as he dropped the door on her. Scowling at his back as he walked out of the back of the storeroom to a cafe, Chandre forced herself to act natural, and they merged with the main crowd, walking out the door.

They stopped walking in an alleyway, where Snape held out his hands. "Take my hands and we can get out of here." Chandre did so with some apprehension, and he muttered some words. Her stomach twisted and she cried out, and suddenly they were in London in another alley. Chandre staggered back, feeling sick, and Snape smirked at her. Shi didn't look so well either, but they pulled themselves together and walked down the street several blocks to stand in front of a long row of houses. Snape showed them a strip of paper with a sentence and told them to form in their minds. Looking up, Chandre blinked in surprise as a house popped into view, shoving aside the houses on either side.

Snape walked up the stairs, and they entered. It was dark and gritty and had the smell of a house long unused, and everything rattled as the house went back to wherever it had been, although they could still see the sidewalk outside. The few passersby on the street didn't even seem to notice that anything strange had happened. They were Muggles, after all.

"Coming?" Snape asked snidely, and Chandre came back to herself and followed them down the dank and musty hall, almost trodding on the crunchy shells of dead cockroaches and what looked like huge spiders, before reaching a cleaner room. With stoves and a sink and an oven it had to be the kitchen, and five other witches and wizards were lounging around a table, idly talking with each other.

Chandre had met only two of the people there, after her real encounter with Voldemort, so she knew that the other three had to be the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's force of good, his knights errant. The members sitting around the table looked up as they entered the room, and the three she didn't recognize narrowed their eyes at her and Shi.

Remus Lupin and Kingsley Shacklebolt they nodded to, and the two wizards nodded back pleasantly.

"Those're the assassins?" an old man with a chewed-up face growled. One eye began to spin an all directions, and Chandre felt slightly naked. Unconsciously she raised her shields a little higher. "We must be getting desperate. Coupla pansies."

Shi turned his face towards the man, and Chandre did too, their faces calm and blank, their killing faces. The people at the tabled twitched in alarm.

"Gods. Her eyes are like his," the pink-haired witch gasped.

The other man Chandre didn't know leaned forwards, staring at her eyes. She stared back, nonplussed, and he shivered.

"They're still a couple a pansies," the old man growled from the table.

Chandre smiled, slowly, a true grin as she recognized someone just as crazy as she was. Shi nodded acknowledgment to the man's remark. "Then we won't turn heads at the party now, shall we?" he drawled, morphing into a fop and running a finger along the table, then rubbing two fingers together, tut-tutting at the dust. The young pink-haired witch at the table snickered behind her hand. The old man grunted.

"Well, everyone, this Chandre Zividia, and that's Cazikov Shindle," Remus said, when Snape didn't move to give introductions. "Chandre, Shi, that kind gentleman is Alastor Moody, that's Tonks," he pointed to the pink-haired witch, "and that's Elphias Doge," to a small, elderly man. "You've already met me and Kingsley here."

"So," Moody said, staring at them, still skeptical, "what can you do?"

"Do you realize who they are?" Kingsley asked. "They're the two who went up against Voldemort and his Death Eaters and lived--"

"A sixteen-year-old boy did that," Moody grumbled. "Besides, they almost got themselves killed." He stared pointedly at the bandage on Chandre's hand. "Where'd that come from?"

"Voldemort," she replied.

"What spell'd he use?"

"I have no idea," Chandre replied, growing angry at the memory. "But it melted my sword."

"Let's have a look, shall we?" Moody said. Chandre shrugged and wrapped off her bandage, showing her hand to him. The others at the table drew back, revolted. Elphias actually rose from the table and staggered from the room. Moody's eye spun faster, and he looked very interested. "Huh. That hurt?"

"Not really," she replied truthfully.

"How long have you had that?" Moody asked.

"About seven weeks."

"Hasn't healed, has it?"

"Does it look like it?" she asked, and rewrapped it. Elphias came back, looking slightly embarrassed.

Moody sneered. "So you're hit by a spell that doesn't let your hand heal, and you've got eyes like Voldemort. You'd better not be on his side." He drew his wand, and Shi moved slightly, putting his hand behind his back. A dagger flicked into his hand. Moody raised the wand and pointed it at her. "Already you bear his scent, and his magic pulses about you." Chandre stiffened. "Ha! You are his."

"I would rather die," she snarled. As the others eyes gathered on her and Moody, Shi slowly slipped, unnoticed, around the room.

"That can be arranged," Moody said, almost purring. His fake eye was rolling about in a frenzy, as if it didn't know which way to point, and his wand began to sputter. Suddenly Shi was behind him, a dagger to the old man's throat. Everyone in the room stiffened and stared, utterly shocked.

"Lower the wand," her partner said, his voice low and almost expressionless.

Moody obeyed, and then began to laugh. Shi immediately stepped away, his dagger flicking back to wherever it had come from. Everyone in the room stared as Moody guffawed; it was obviously a very rare reaction from him.

Finally the old man stopped laughing, and drew his breath. "Very good," he said. "No one has crept up on me like that in a long, long time. You are good." He looked at Chandre, the mirth falling from his face. "You, however. You are contaminated. I can feel him about you in a way I haven't in anyone else, not even Death Eaters." He spat the name. "What are you?" He glared at Snape. "How could you bring her here? She jeopardizes this house with her presence."

Snape shrugged. "I didn't know. Truly. She didn't seem like a Death Eater," he said, sounding grudging to have to say that to her.

"She killed five Death Eaters on the Hogwarts Express," Kingsley added.

"I'm not a Death Eater!" Chandre said.

"Of course you're not," Moody said. "He's got you in some other way, doesn't he?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Chandre said.

"Neither do I," Shi replied. "We're from off-planet. Our first time here. What would someone like Voldemort want with her? What advantages would she bring him? Absolutely none."

"Have you seen him since you attacked him?" Remus asked.

Chandre didn't think the dreams counted, and didn't want to mention them. "No." She stared him straight in the eyes, and he nodded.

"There you have it, Mad-Eye," he told Moody. "I don't think she's connected to him. That smell is probably just residue from the spell he cast on her. Something like that should have healed, at least partially, by now. It's the spell, slowing it down, not his direct influence on her."

"Can we get away from my supposed connection to Voldemort and get onto plans for tomorrow night?" Chandre asked, growing irritated. "That seems more important, seeing as I can't really prove, beyond my word, that I have no relation to him, and never would."

Moody stared at her, but the others, growing tired of his fascination, began to outline plans for the Halloween Ball, and she and Shi listened, so they'd know how and where everyone would be. As auxiliary types, it was their jobs to float around and look, so no one would know where they'd be, exactly.

Finally they all went to bed, Chandre and Shi sharing a room, even though initially they had been given two. They didn't protest, just moved things from her room to his, and crawled into bed with each other. It was a small bed, meant for one person, so they were a tad cramped, but Shi didn't complain, and neither did Chandre. With Voldemort somehow coming into her dreams she really didn't want to be alone, so she and Shi lay in the bed, pressed as closely as lovers.

That night Voldemort came again, worse than the other times. Before he had let her dance about the room with him with malignant playfulness, but that night she had awakened shackled to the bed, completely naked. Struggling against the bonds, she looked up as he entered, dressed as usual in his black robes, cadaverous chest showing.

He leaned against her, running a hand through her hair, far gentler than he had ever been before. Most times he threw her against the wall or dug his fingers along her back, and she froze, startled at this change. His eyes glowed red with lust as he stared down at her, and slowly his thin lips caressed her cheek in light kisses. At that touch she struggled, one hand breaking free of the shackles, and she punched him, knocking him off her.

With a growl he rose and drew a dagger. "I would have been gentle," he snarled, raising it. The blade glittered from the firelight. "But you refused me yet again." He pinned her hand with his free one and began kissing her with a hot passion, teeth pulled back and biting her. She writhed in pain, and watched in horror as the hand with the dagger raised once more, then began stroking her breasts, running down her stomach, the tip playing at her skin, sharp enough to prick at her skin, but no blood was drawn. It was control, and his eyes shone at the power he held over her. She struggled, and the blade nicked her stomach. He raised the dagger then, and plunged it into the spot. Red blood splurted out, sluggishly, moving faster . . .

"Wake up!" Shi snarled, shaking her shoulders roughly. Chandre woke with a gasp, clasping her stomach tightly and shuddering, until he convinced her, slowly, that she was here, with him, not with Voldemort, and she was safe, safe, did she hear? Voldemort couldn't get to her here.

"S-sorry," she gasped, wiping at the tears of pain from her eyes, shaking even more than normal. Her stomach throbbed. "I think I'm cut," she whispered.

Shi turned on the light, and pulled back the covers. A dark, purple bruise was spreading across her pale skin, right in the spot the dagger had been plunged. His face paled. "Oh shit," he said faintly.

Something shifted in the house, and he put his fingers to her lips. They listened, but heard nothing else. "I don't think you woke anyone," he whispered. "It wasn't very loud." He turned off the light, and shivered, pulling the covers about both of them. "Can you go back to sleep?"

"I don't think so," she replied.

He sighed. "It's only two in the morning. You need to get back to sleep."

"He'll come," she whispered.

"You need sleep," Shi argued. "Odds are he won't come back." She lay back down, and he wrapped himself about her, throwing a leg over hers and holding her gently around the waist, hand spread across her stomach. She let her head rest back against his shoulder, and they stayed that way, him not falling asleep until she did. After a while of lying there in silence, both staring into the dark of the room, he shifted, hip digging into her back before he moved it away again, and his hand shifted a little higher, just under her breasts, but not touching them. It was a very intimate embrace, but she didn't mind, and slowly went to sleep.

If Chandre had thought that a wizarding Halloween Ball was going to be anything like the balls she had seen before, she was absolutely correct. There might have been magic, and the band might have been wearing black spiderwebs, but there was still the usual mingling of high-class, pure-blooded witches and wizards, their noses so high in the air that if it rained, they'd drown.

Everyone was decked to the nines, in some cases wearing so much jewelry that she could hardly see their faces, and the men wore just as much jewelry as the women, and also wore robes, which she was beginning to see, as evidenced in Hogwarts, was completely normal. In fact, pants on either men or women was seen as something of an anomaly, and they considered Muggles as Neanderthals, somewhere lower than gorillas on the evolutionary scale. Chandre couldn't exactly agree with them, but she had to admit that the Muggles on this planet had no idea that witches and wizards existed. It was like the two were completely separate branches of society, one hiding away, the other unaware, both ignorant of the other's customs.

She came back to the present quickly as her escort, the wheezy-voiced Elphias Doge, who was just barely prestigious enough to have been invited, and well known that he was able to wander through the crowds with people knowing precisely who he was, patted her arm. It was the perfect cover for her, even though he was married. She was supposedly his young niece, come up from the country to celebrate the Ball. For the part she was wearing a modest robe that barely came down to her breasts, but fit her waist perfectly. She was wearing a corset, to accentuate what curves she had, but she had insisted to Shi that he didn't tighten it too much, or else she couldn't breath. The robe was a mottled forest green, showing off her pale skin and making it seem like it glowed, and she had dyed her hair for the occasion to a rich brown, putting in brown contacts to make her eyes seem normal. Elphias' eyes had popped out of his head when she had come down to the kitchen, where they had all gathered to meet for the very last brief, and the others had whistled, even though she was only going to blend in with the others. White gloves went up to her elbows, covering the bandage on her right hand. She hoped it wouldn't bleed through, and wished she didn't have to dress up.

She was jealous of Shi, who was waiting outside, scanning the surroundings. He was dressed in all black, wearing a black robe that enabled him to blend in if he had to, but go stealthed for necessity. He would eliminate as many attackers from the outside as possible.

"Uncle, I'm going for a drink," Chandre said, patting Elphias's arm and smiling prettily.

He smiled back. "Of course, my dear. Enjoy yourself."

"It's only a drink!" she laughed, and twirled away, her skirts billowing about her feet. Several of the younger wizards turned as she passed, but she ignored them, dancing over to the punch stand and asking for a drink, which she only pretended to sip, gazing over the dancing figures on the floor as she scanned for anyone who looked out of place, but to the observer, she looked only like a young woman at her first ball, cheeks flushed, eyes alight with excitement.

"My I dance with you, miss?" a young man asked.

"Of course!" she gushed, and took his hand, letting him lead her to the floor, where they settled into a stately waltz.

"What's your name? I've never seen you here before," the man said.

"Ariana," she replied. "This is my first Ball, I live in the country, but my uncle took me. It's to be my coming-out year." She thought hard. "What's your name?"

"Geoffrey," he replied, the hand on her waist moving slightly, feeling her up. She twitched, surprised, and he smiled. "Lord Geoffrey of Frenshine Heights."

The dance finished, and he kissed her hand. "May we dance again, Miss Ariana," he murmured, and she giggled, blushing.

Another young man took her for a dance, and another, and some older men. She danced, using the time to look about the room for any odd-looking person. Unfortunately all of the servers were wearing masks, so she couldn't see much about them, but she caught three that had a very odd body stance, moving jerkily.

Someone tapped the shoulder of the young man she was dancing with, and a man grated, "May I cut in?"

The man looked, and looked again. "O-of course, sir," he said. "If the lady doesn't mind."

Chandre's eyes were wide from alarm, deep in her part, but she recovered and murmured in a slightly shaky voice, "I do not mind."

Mad-Eye put his hand on her waist, the other in her hand, and led her in a slow waltz. "Sir, I'm afraid I have not made your acquaintance," she said as he twirled her.

Mad-Eye put his head towards her ear and growled, "You're not being paid to dance, missy. Get to work."

"I am working," she said, dropping into her normal voice, but her face stayed the same, pleasant, but apprehensive. Anyone dancing with Moody would be. "See the three servers by the door? They're tense. And the guard in the far corner? His eyes never leave the Minister, and his hand shifts to his weapon every so often."

"An amateur could have spotted them," he growled.

"Did you, by chance, catch the Muggle in the black robe?" she asked. His fake eye pointed straight at her, and she let her face show barely masked fear. "Check near the punch bowl. He's got a camera in one hand, which he keeps raising."

"A Muggle?" he asked. "How'd that get in here?"

"No clue, but you might want to catch him," Chandre replied, and gasped with delight as a sparkle of blue shimmering things descended from the ceiling in a puff of smoke.

At that moment the three servers attacked, drawing their wands. Chandre broke away from Moody, who was drawing his wand as well. She let him handle the three servers, looking around the room for the Minister. He was gagging, and a group of people about him were trying to help.

Quickly Chandre pushed her way to him, spotting a man running away from the scene, his blue robe flaring about him, a vial of something in his hand, wand in the other. Running as fast as she could, she overtook him and tackled him, bringing him to the ground with a grunt. He rolled over and pointed his wand at her, but she knocked it aside and ripped out a dagger, pressing it against his throat.

The commotion died down rather quickly as the witch and wizard police came, setting aside spells and taking away people who were being quickly caught by the Order of the Phoenix members or Fudge's bodyguards.

Chandre was pulled off of her man, kicking him in the face as she did so and gasping that he had something bad in his hand, she saw him pour it into the Minister's glass. They discovered it and she slipped into the crowd, smoothing down her hair.

Someone grabbed her arm at the elbow and drew her away from the crowd, twisting her head she saw it was Shi, and relaxed slightly.

"What's up?"

"Trouble. Four men down in the alleys, Snape's watching them, but the fifth got away from him and went in here," he murmured. "Purple robes, blue sapphire in left ear."

She nodded and they parted, going their separate ways. It was Shi who found the man, weaseling his way into Fudge's entourage. Her partner moved up behind him and pressed a dagger into his back, taking him away just as he was about to cast a spell. The man tried to escape, but Shi applied a thumb to a pressure point, and he sagged against him. Quietly Shi flung an arm under his shoulders and took him away, telling those who were watching that his friend must have had one too many, and the excitement was just too much.

The man was taken away for questioning, and the rest of the group went back to watching as the party dispersed, too shocked to do anything else. The police took some aside for questioning, and Chandre quickly got away without notice, slipping through the crowd to find Elphias, where she stood with him, shaking and quivering in mock fear.

Fudge was carried out of the ball, weak but very much alive, and one of their members went with his group as his bodyguard, already placed as a mole many months before. Their job done, the Order of the Phoenix went their separate ways, Shi and Snape waiting until the police took their men away for questioning before slinking further back into the shadows.

Back at the house, she dressed back into her normal clothes, told that when everyone came there'd be a debrief. She was just shrugging out of the corset when the door opened and Shi entered, talking with someone. Turning in surprise, her eyes widened as they met with Snape's, and his face got very red and he coughed, looking away.

"I'd better change," he said, and Shi shrugged, closing the door behind him.

They changed and went downstairs, dressed once more in ordinary black robes, Chandre's contacts out but her hair still brown. It would take a good washing to get the dye out. Shi leaned against the wall beside her, scratching at the back of his head as the meeting progressed. No doubt the dye on his head itched like crazy; he was slightly allergic to the temporary dyes. They weren't mentioned at all during the meeting, which was for the best, and at the end they went back to their room and slept. They'd return to Hogwarts in the morning.

Voldemort did not come that night, to her great relief, and to Shi's too, she thought. He was getting very tired of her waking up gasping and sobbing the middle of the night; it was unlike her and he wasn't getting any sleep.

That morning they waited while Snape came down the stairs, looking sleep-tousled and grumpy. He glared when he saw her, but said nothing, and they headed out of the house, things slung across their backs. It was early enough that no one else was awake in the house, nor out on the street nearby, so they headed into an alley and Apparated in another alley at Hogsmeade, then took the walk back to Hogwarts, all silent.

They parted at the front door, Snape to his room or his office or his classroom, Chandre and Shi up to somewhere with a shower, so they could wash the dye out of their hair. The facilities at the safehouse had been less than welcoming, with spiders resting in the bathtub.

Several students were awake at that cold hour, though, and they passed them in the hall, but they weren't recognized. It wasn't any of their students, after all.


	11. Bad Rumors and Gross Encounters

"Someone else was murdered on Halloween," Shi said, setting a newspaper down in front of her later that morning, as they were eating breakfast. "The Bulgarian Minister of Magic. He was at the Ball."

Chandre grabbed the paper and read it, heart sinking. "Oh shit," she muttered. "Maybe Fudge was only a distraction."

He nodded grimly. "Looks like it. Minister Ahard was just leaving when someone in black popped out of the shadows and slew him. Look down at the bottom paragraph. With a dagger." His voice lowered at the last sentence, and she looked up at him sharply. He smiled bitterly. "It seems someone wants us framed."

"But we have an alibi. We were here the entire time," she said, and looked down. "Huh. Doesn't say who they are looking for. Just, pursuing leads."

"They have nothing," Shi said.

"Does the name Lucius Malfoy mean anything to you?" Chandre asked. "He's saying it might be clever assassins hired by some other sinister force."

"Isn't he that Draco kid's dad?" Shi asked, leaning over her shoulder to stare down at the text. He sat down in the chair beside her and reached across the table, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing it heavily with jam. "He certainly has motive."

McGonagell sat down beside them, nodding easily. "Your hair has brown streaks in it," she said by way of greeting, and Chandre hurriedly grabbed her braid.

"Oh damn."

Fortunately McGonagell was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, so she probably knew what the dye was for, and didn't mention a thing.

The assassination of Minister Ahard was news across the school all that day and the next when they were teaching class, the students so disturbed that they were hard to teach. Several were distracted and watched both of them with wide eyes, jumping every time they moved sharply, and more than one student wasn't in the class that day.

Finally Shi grew exasperated after the fifth student fell flat on his face after he walked behind him, and asked loudly, "All right, what is going on that warrants less than full attention?" The room fell silent, and Chandre crossed her arms. None of the students looked in their eyes.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" Chandre asked. The girl dropped her gaze and looked terrified. "Please tell me."

"Are you really assassins?" Semus asked, his eyes wide with alarm.

"Who suggested that to you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice pleasant and neutral, as if it was highly entertaining. It was, in a way. At her ease at the question, the students in the room relaxed. Best to treat it as a joke.

"N-no one," Semus said. "It's just a rumor going around."

"Any other sort of rumors?" Shi asked with a grin. "Like, oh, me and Professor Zividia offing Minister Ahard?" Most of their faces paled, and his smiled broadened. "My, my. I wouldn't have thought you to believe every stupid thing you heard, but I guess I was wrong."

The students relaxed again, slightly. "Good. Now that's out in the open, let's get to work," Chandre said. "Find a partner close to your height and practice hip-throwing."

Class resumed, and went much smoother. Over the dim of the struggling students and shouts, Chandre caught Shi's eye, and they shared a look. Someone really wanted them gone.

It didn't get any better over the next couple of days, or even the next week, with students acting strange and nervous around them. At least five quit both of their classes, but they pretended to take it lightly, not seeming to care, although Chandre was hit hard. Didn't anyone believe them? She had thought that maybe they would be liked as professors, but she supposed not. Having a strong suspicion that your teachers killed people for a living probably was not a reassuring thought to students who had lived in relative peace all their lives, with only minor scares racing through it.

Chandre was thankful that none of the students who took extra lessons quit or dropped their classes, in fact, they seemed to take the rumors better than most. Neville, of course, already knew that they were assassins, and so wasn't affected in the least. She only had to tell him that no, she didn't kill Minister Ahard and he believed her.

Owls began sending them messages, all of it hate mail, each morning, which they read and carefully discarded, slowly growing angrier and angrier, but keeping a smile of amusement on their faces. The other teachers supported them with small nods and smiles when they passed in the halls, but it was only going to get worse as the minor attacks grew.

Whoever was doing this to them went so far as to publish nasty, libelous articles of them in The Daily Prophet, the wizarding community's source of information. Chandre took those easily, because they were all lies, and she and Shi laughed over them during breakfast, turning it into a great joke. The only way to beat it, even if it was slowly dragging them down into the well of anger. And anger was not a good thing.

What topped it off, though, were the nightmares. Shi was putting up with it, but it was slowly irritating him every night to have her a ball of nerves, preventing them both from much needed sleep. He never mentioned his annoyance, but she could sensed it seeping through his perfect mental wall, and went so far as to suggest that maybe they sleep elsewhere so he could sleep, but he just shook his head and lay back down, muttering that then she wouldn't be sleeping at all, and when she did sleep, she'd be with him.

Two weeks before winter break commenced, Chandre sent her last student out the door, and leaned back against the wall next to the armory, slowly sliding down until she was sitting, head on her knees as she finally dropped her everything's-just-fine façade. Shi had gone off somewhere after his last student of the day, off to have some time alone, and tears slowly slid down her face. Her legs sprawled out on the floor, and she leaned her head back, letting the tears course down.

She cursed. She could handle this. She could. She'd dealt with people attacking her, being captured, tortured, raped, the works, but that had all been while she'd been someone else. Someone stronger than her, a persona she could slip into like a new glove. Here she was herself, and it was wearing her down, how the people were attacking her, not the person she was pretending to be.

She just wanted to leave, get away and go out and do what she was good at. What she was trained to do. Footsteps sounded outside the door, and she wiped her face. The door eased open, and she watched Snape walk in, robes swirling. She stared at him blankly, hiding her surprise, and he looked surprised to see her still there, then paused, frowning darkly.

"Are you drunk?" he asked, peering at her. It was the first thing he had spoken to her in a long time.

"Huh?" She looked at the way her limbs were sprawled about and rearranged them. "No. Just sitting. What do you want?"

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and opened it again, snapping, "Nothing. I was walking and the door was open." It hadn't been, but he turned around and left, his heels clicking on the stone floor of the hall.

Chandre rose and decided to go for a run, hoping that it would clear her head. Running usually did.

Coming into her room later that night she saw that Shi hadn't come back yet, and frowned. Normally he was back before she went to sleep, or at least he told her where he was going. With her dreams getting closer and closer paced together and worse than ever, he usually didn't go to Hogsmeade without taking her with him, but she didn't drink beer unless she absolutely had to, and it just wasn't her scene. On the bed was a note, and she picked it up. "Be back later, Shi," it read, and she set it on the nightstand. It was codephrased to mean that he was with a lady and would be back in the morning, and she frowned. That was unusual. Lately he had been forfeiting his nightly encounters to stay with her.

Yawning, she undressed and sprawled across the bed, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest. Why did he have all the luck? she thought, and hoped that the nightmare wouldn't come.

It did, and she woke gasping as someone pounded on the door. She shuddered and stood up to answer it, then realized she was naked and pulled the top blanket around herself, answering the door. It was Snape.

"What do you want?" she asked, shaking from fear. She knew that her face was pale and her eyes wide, and he stepped back a little.

"There's a troll in the school," he said, looking slightly agitated. His gaze settled onto her chest where the sheet had slipped down in her haste to get to the door, and she pulled it back up, shifting her shoulders.

"Where?" Her thoughts were still muzzy and terror-filled with sleep. Everything just didn't seem quite real yet.

"On the second floor, last time we knew. Hurry up and get dressed." He peered past her and asked, "Where's Shindle? Doesn't he sleep here too?"

"He's out," she replied with a yawn. "He'll be back in the morning." It was the weekend, so he wasn't exactly obliged to be at the school.

"Hurry then." She closed the door on his face and threw on the first things she saw, and buckled Shi's sword baldric across her chest, giving up on her boots and going barefoot. Snape looked her up and down, and she realized that he was wearing only a nightrobe, which only looked like his normal robes because it was black.

Other teachers were dashing all over the halls, searching for the troll, and Chandre joined a group to search. They never caught sight of the troll as another group caught it and killed it, but she didn't mind, after seeing the mess that it had left, and the others covered in a stinking green slime. Wrinkling her nose, she turned around and headed back up the stairs to her room. The others were already walking back up to their beds, or in some case, baths. Professor Babcock was one of the ones who had been in the fight with the troll, and she grinned as he walked up the stairs to the teacher's baths stiff-legged, his robes drenched.

Feeling a little better, with the dream slightly abated, she climbed the stairs, yawning. As she passed a dark section, she was caught by the arm and someone's cold lips pressed against hers. Flipping out a dagger, she pressed it to her attacker's throat, and stepped back, eyes wide and face very pale when she saw it was Snape. His eyes burned as he looked at her.

"What was that?" she asked, alarmed but lowering her dagger.

He stepped forwards and she stepped back, hitting the wall. Slowly he came closer until they were almost touching, and he leaned his head towards her as she froze in fear, flashbacks of Voldemort coming towards her. Snape closed his eyes and breathed in, inhaling her scent. She shuddered.

"You're beautiful," he murmured in her ear. "I've wanted to touch you since I first saw you, lying almost dead in the clearing. A fallen angel." One of his pale hands brushed a strand of her mussed hair, and she edged away from him. His other hand reached out and tightly gripped her left wrist.

"There, you've touched me," she said uneasily. "Now please let me go. I don't want to hurt you."

"You've hurt me all this time," he breathed, his greasy hair touching her cheek. "Taunting me, playing with me. I've waited every single night for you to come, but you didn't."

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Your lost wager. I've been waiting each night in eager anticipation for you--"

"Really, I haven't give you a seconds thou--" she started, embarrassed that he had overheard that part of their conversation, but he interrupted her.

"I envy Shindle," he continued. "He has you under some spell, doesn't he? I've seen how he keeps you to himself, away from everyone else. He doesn't even let other men look at you. You're a prisoner--"

"What?" she exclaimed.

"I'll free you from his clutches," Snape said madly, a strange glint in his eyes as he stared at her. "I'll take you away from him, keep you from his grasp--"

"I'm not trapped by anyone!" Chandre snapped, starting to grow angry and then just feeling tired. "Get your head out of your ass and listening to me, Severus!" He paused, and stared at her, fingers tightening about her wrist. "Shi and I are partners. Nothing more. If we keep close, it's because we don't know anyone here."

"I want you," he said, and she pulled away from him.

"I don't want you," she said, feeling even more tired than ever. "I work with you, Severus. Get that through your head and act more professional, will you? Dump a bucket of cold water over your head if it helps, but stay away."

Faster than she imagined, he pressed against her, mouth against hers. Not wanting to fight back, she dropped her dagger to her side and turned her head away. "Please. I don't want to hurt you."

"He controls you, doesn't he?" Snape asked. She froze, feeling someone watching them, but seeing no one. "What is it, a spell, a curse?" Chandre shook her head, regaining her composure. Shi didn't control her, but he was the one who was going to kill her. Snape wouldn't understand that, so she just shook her head.

"I'm not under any sort of spell," she said. "You are. Go away, Snape, before you do something you regret and I have to hurt you."

He looked like she had just slapped him, and his features darkened with anger. She slipped under his arm and dashed up the stairs, flipping her dagger into her armsheath and hoping that he wouldn't send a spell up after her to freeze her or something. She reached the door without anything happening, and closed with silently, locking it and pressing her back against it, breathing heavily.

That had been most diplomatic of her, she thought. Shi would be proud. Usually she would have grievously injured any man or woman who had pulled something like that on her.

She wiped her lips on her sleeves, and undressed, crawling back under the covers. Of all of the professors, she thought, lying in the bed, it would have to be the grossest.


	12. The Yuletide Dance

Snape ignored her a long time after that, but then, he normally had, although she caught him giving her covert looks when he thought she wasn't looking. Shi didn't notice, but then, he rarely did. He probably wouldn't notice unless he was paying attention or hit on the head.

She was wrong about that, as the night before winter break and before the Yuletide Dance, when they were lying in bed, Chandre pressed against his side. She had taken to holding him during the night like a giant teddy bear, hoping that that would keep her from having the dreams, and at first it had, but they had returned with a vengeance. Suddenly he rolled over and faced her.

"What's between you and Snape?" They hadn't spoke at all during the night, preferring companionable silence. "Just out of curiosity."

"I don't know," she lied. "Why?"

"He's been pretty cold towards me. Normally it's just towards you that he completely ignores, but lately he's been giving you really weird looks. Is he getting the wrong idea, perhaps?" He pushed himself up on his elbow so he could look at her better.

"I haven't been sending him any ideas," Chandre replied. "I told him quite politely that I wasn't interested in him and I think he took it the wrong way. It's like all the men I really don't want to be around slobber about me. Do you ever have that problem with women?"

He snorted. "All the time. Look at it this way. You really have to work for the ones you want and push away as hard as possible from the ones who want you." She grinned. "I wouldn't worry about him. You're probably the prettiest thing he's ever seen in his entire life."

"Wow, that was almost a compliment," she said dryly.

He grinned. "If you're into red-heads, you're the prettiest thing, that is, kiddo." His grin turned lopsided, and she waited for the comeback. "Me, I like blonds."

She laughed and he rolled back over. The type of woman he lusted after would have back problems before they were thirty, their breasts were so big, and their waists so tiny. He liked women with astonishingly over-exaggerated curves.

The Great Hall was filled with icicle-covered trees the next night, as the Yuletide Ball was being held. It was only for third years and older, so the younger ones were in their rooms, eagerly awaiting the train that would take them home for the holidays. Chandre was looking forward to the holidays because it meant that after them, there was only a week until finals, and then she could get off this damn planet.

She was looking forwards to that, because the night before had been the very, utter worst. Voldemort had told her that she would come to him, and they'd be together forever. She shivered, and Shi glanced at her. He was stunning in a dark green, almost black, robe that set off his golden complexion and blond hair. It really did nothing for his gray eyes, but they seemed a little warmer, especially when he smiled.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied, and twirled about, liking the feel of her long skirts. No robes for her, it was a dress. A dress that she liked, not one that one of her personas would wear. It was an indigo blue and contrasted amazingly with her crimson hair and pale skin, and looked like it was poured on. It was the type of dress that suggested it revealed more than it really did, as she really wasn't baring any breast, even though it was off the shoulder, and the long sleeves hid the scars on her right arm and the ever-present bandage.

They reached the professors' table and she sat down, watching everyone dance and laugh. Shi immediately asked one of the older professors to dance, and they swept about the floor, him flirting charmingly. Professor Babcock soon asked her to dance, and she agreed, grinning. They swept about the floor, and she easily submitted to dances from most of the professors and some of the students, who seemed stiffer with her than the professors, most of whom were married or old enough not to care that she was young and very pretty.

Suddenly a feeling of wrongness tingled down her spine and the wound on her hand flared in pain for the first time in weeks, and her smiled slipped. Dumbledore, her partner at the time, frowned and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," she replied slowly. "Something. I think I need to sit down."

Dumbledore nodded and they moved off the dance floor, and she sat, refusing the glass of punch he handed her. Shi came up to her after the headmaster had left, her having protested that it was just a feeling, she was perfectly fine.

"What's wrong, kiddo?" he asked, sitting beside her.

"I felt something. It was just . . . wrong," she said, rubbing her hand. "And my hand hurts."

He raised his eyebrows. "Do you think it's Voldemort?" he asked.

"I don't know. I still don't know if those dreams are real or just a side-effect from whatever spell he hit me with," Chandre said, peering at the bandage. It was bleeding again, the blood slowly oozing through the bandages. She grimaced.

"I'm beginning to think the former," Shi said. "Anyway, keep on your toes."

"Always do," she replied, and he grinned.

Before he could add a smart remark to that, Professor Sprout pulled him up from his chair, laughing and saying she need a young, strong, handsome partner to tango with. As he was dragged to the dance floor he glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes, causing Chandre to laugh, and then he glanced back at his dance partner, flirting outrageously and making Sprout blush harder than Chandre had ever seen her.

As she was settling in to watch the dancing, trying to get rid of that feeling of wrongness, there was a ripple through the crowd, and gasps as someone staggered through couples and other people. Chandre rose immediately, a dagger covertly in her hands. Shi was alert as well, standing normally with every muscle tensed to spring, a dagger hidden in each hand.

"What's wrong?" Dumbledore asked the Slytherin prefect that had staggered in, nose bleeding.

"Cho . . . and Hermione . . . taken," she gasped, back trembling as she heaved breath. "By a . . . group of people . . . in . . . black hoods."

"Where?" Dumbledore snapped.

"Down . . . east hall," she said slowly, pointing in the general direction.

Quickly Dumbledore ordered the students to stay in the hall, it was safe, and had the professors gather in a circle for a miniature conference before splitting into groups, one to remain behind with the children, the others to search for and destroy the Death Eaters.

"Prefects," Dumbledore said after the head students gathered about, "make sure no one leaves this room, not even for bathroom breaks."

They broke apart and headed out into the building. Chandre found herself in a group with Sprout and Flitwick, while Shi was in another with Hagrid and Babcock. She had pretty much just her daggers, a garrote wire and some throwing stars, and wished she had something like Shi's sword, but that was in their room, so they were both bereft of whatever protection from hexes and spells it would have given them. Without any other sort of long-range weapon to give her an advantage over their wands, she was very, very outnumbered.

The halls were dark and gloomy as they wandered down it, utterly silent, and she kept her head moving back and forth to side to side, her skirt slithering between and about her legs as she crept against a side of the hall, easing around a corner. Nothing, and she moved on, signaling to Sprout and Flitwick, who each had their wands raised high.

Suddenly a young student Chandre didn't recognize ran up to them, breathing heavily, obviously scared out of his mind. "I saw them!" he squeaked, voice several octaves higher than it should have been.

"Why aren't you in the Hall?" she asked, then realized that this was one of the younger students, too young for the Dance. He looked even too young for the school though, or it could have just been the fear. She shook her head.

"Which direction?" Flitwick asked.

"Near the Forest, a whole group of them," the boy said. "By that big oak."

"The willow," Sprout murmured. "Go up to your House, child," she ordered, and they sprinted out the nearest door towards the Forest, following Sprout's directions.

The night air was cold as they ran, Chandre realizing where they were going and taking the lead, her skirts becoming drenched and heavy and cold from the snow, but she still moved faster than the two professors, who puffed along, their breaths coming in steamy gasps.

She saw the flash of light from spells and sensed the reek of Dark magic some distance away and called to her companions, speeding up. Some of the professors had already found the Death Eaters, and were doing battle. She ran faster, leaving her group behind as she fought to make her way towards the fight, bounding through snow that was, at times, thigh high.

She was close enough to make out McGonagell's group when she saw the older woman scream, taking a spell to the chest and falling. She didn't move, and Chandre sped up, hoping to catch the Death Eaters before they left. She could make out the hooded figures as she ran, recognizing the two girls slung over two of their shoulders. There were at least twenty slipping through the trees, already leaving behind the fallen figures of the three professors who had tangled with them.

As she entered the Forest, she dug down into a clever pocket in her skirts and pulled out her throwing stars, leaping over a log as she came near them and throwing them, catching three and taking them down. The rest turned and raised their wands, but she was already among them, cutting and slashing and moving smoothly and angrily through them.

Down two more, she twirled about and headed deeper into the Forest as Sprout and Flitwick came nearer, but the Death Eaters only saw her, and went after her, a group staying behind to deal with the other professors, who were running up behind Sprout and Flitwick.

Chandre glimpsed the Death Eater with one of the girls fall, and then she was slipping through the trees, running through them, making a wide arc to take her back to the safety of the group of teachers.

She had almost made it when someone shouted, "That's the one! Take her!"

Dark magic roiled and she twisted, but the spell hit her full in the back and she fell, darkness slipping over her.

Shi dashed into the clearing with the teachers just in time to see her crumple, his group hot on his heels, and he yelled, heading straight towards the Death Eaters, who swarmed about her, picking up her limp body and heading off to join the rest, stopping the fight immediately.

He chased them until they Apparated, taking everything but their dead with them, and he stopped, staring at the spot they had just been, their footsteps leading nowhere in the snow.

"Where'd they go?" he growled to Dumbledore, the first to reach him.

"I don't know," the headmaster replied, his blue eyes flashing angrily. "But we will find them. This was meant as a slap in my face."

"What the hell was that?" Babcock asked, running towards them.

"A raiding party," Shi said, regaining his composure. "A fucking raiding party. Surely you could see that." Babcock turned to stare at him, and the rest of the professors reached them, save for those who had gone down, and the others that were treating them. Someone reported that no other student was missing, save for Cho and Hermione, the Death Eaters had recovered them, and no teachers except Chandre.

"If that was a raiding party, then what were they after?" Snape asked after Dumbledore explained the situation. He seemed highly enraged and strangely flushed, Shi noticed. "Students would be no use to them."

"Chandre," Shi said, drawing all eyes to him. "They wanted Chandre."

"I realize you're upset about your lover getting kidnapped, but there are two other students there as well. What would You-Know-Who want with a magicless professor?" Snape drawled sarcastically, but there was a bitter challenge in his eyes that Shi didn't understand.

"She's not my lover," Shi growled.

"Yes, Shi," Professor Trelawnly said in her dreamy voice, "what would he want with her?"

Shi shrugged. "Aside from billions of dollars in bounty money, how should I know?"

"Billions?" Sprout asked.

"We're quite good at what we do," Shi said. "Although I don't see why he wouldn't take me along with her. Together we're worth more." He sighed, seeing her limp body being lifted over the figure's shoulders once again, her crimson hair spilling down like smoldering lava. "We'd better concoct a rescue mission, or something, because those two students have parents that are going to be pretty pissed off, and the whole school will be wondering."

They headed back up to the castle and set up guards about the halls, while the professors who were able, along with a very weak McGonagell, had a conference in one of the rooms with rounded tables. The professors came up with the plan to storm Voldemort's castle and demand the students and Chandre, and he sat back, silent, calculating. He wasn't much worried about Chandre; she could get herself out of any mess she had too, it all just depended on what Voldemort wanted with her. She could handle rape, he knew that, and torture, and a combination of the two, but he had never seen her so rattled as when after those dreams where she had said Voldemort was with her. She had never said exactly what had gone on in those dreams, but he had a very strong feeling that they had been sexual, and that whatever had been done freaked her out more than anything she had ever been through before. But she could handle herself. She knew that keeping herself alive was the key, and if she was there with the two girls, she'd protect them to the best of her ability.

So while the other professors bickered about the best way to get the students back, he sat back in his chair and thought about his own plan. If she was alive, he'd find her; if she was dead, he'd kill whoever did it. It was the oath that bound them. And he'd get the students out, if these babbling idiots did not.

Finally the meeting ended, and they filed out, but Dumbledore placed a hand on his shoulder and he stayed, startled to be singled out. The others had thought that while he had his uses, this was not one of them.

"Sit," Dumbledore said, and Shi took a seat, Dumbledore another. They stared at each other for a moment before the headmaster said, "Voldemort is rich. He doesn't need money, especially bounty money that would take months to arrive. Is there any other reason for Voldemort to want her?"

"She survived that spell he placed on her," Shi admitted, belatedly thinking of it. "Avida whatever."

"Avada Kedavra," Dumbledore corrected softly. "Only one other known survivor, Harry Potter. He is Voldemort's enemy, but he wasn't the one taken. He took Chandre and not you, who survived the nimbus of that spell, and I'll bet you've killed more Death Eaters than her."

"Maybe. Maybe the same," he admitted.

"You also embarrassed him in the clearing."

"He never saw my face." Shi was determined not to mention the dreams.

Dumbledore opened his mouth to reply, but the door slammed open and Harry and Ron burst in. "Where's Cho?" Harry demanded as Ron asked, "Where's Hermione?"

"Those were Death Eaters," Harry said. "Weren't they? Voldemort has them."

"He does, but we believe they weren't his main target, just distractions," Dumbledore said.

"Professor Zividia?" Ron asked in disbelief, staring at Shi, who regarded him blandly. "What would You-Know-Who want with her?"

"It doesn't concern you," Shi said.

"I don't care who Voldemort was after," Harry announced. "We're going after them and you can't stop us!"

"I wasn't going to stop you," Dumbledore replied, and Shi raised an eyebrow. "You may go with my full blessings, under two stipulations."

"What?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"One: you do not fight Voldemort--he's too powerful and this is a rescue mission," Dumbledore said. "And second: you take Professors Shindle and Snape with you."

"But Snape!" Harry protested as the man in question strode through the door, looking very peeved.

"Professor Snape to you, and he knows Voldemort's lair fairly well," Dumbledore said. "He also can Apparate with more than one person, and he is a better wizard than all of you, and he will work with you to rescue them. In case of any disputes in the chain of command, however, I'm placing Professor Shindle in charge of the operation." The boys gave him a disbelieving look, as if they thought they could do a better job, and Dumbledore continued, "The rumors around school are quite true, and Professor Shindle is an expert. One of the best. He has more combat experience than the three of you combined will have in your entire lives."

"You really kill people for money?" Ron asked, horrified.

"And you're one of the best?" Harry asked. "How come you're here?"

"This was supposed to be something of a vacation," Shi told them.

"What about Professor Zividia?" Ron asked. "She'll get out of there on her own, right?"

"She'll be trying her best to escape," Shi replied, but the feeling in his gut suggested otherwise. "We'll try to reach her first, then the students."

"We're going tonight?" Snape asked. "It's one in the morning."

"And I have enough pick-me-ups to last us all week," Shi replied. "The sooner the better on this operation, although it will have to be right as the others are 'storming' the castle. Now, you're going to need the basics, then we have to go."

Two hours later they were all ready, everyone wearing dark clothes, but not flowing wizarding robes. Snape looked highly uncomfortable in the black fatigues and shirt Shi had lent him, but was making do, uneasily fingering the dagger he had handed to him. Harry and Ron each had daggers but had been instructed firmly to either use their wands or stay low in danger. They had also brought Harry's invisibility cloak, just in case they needed that. Shi was carrying his full gear, save the electronic stuff that wouldn't work in the lair, and it was all about forty pounds, including his sword, which he usually didn't bring but thought Chandre might want. It seemed to deflect spells well enough, which was better than anything else he had. For a long-ranged weapon he had pulled out a crossbow from the armory, with a tight quiver of poison-tipped bolts strapped to his thigh. There was another one in his pack for Chandre.

In fact, he brought just about two of everything, and Snape scowled at him. The man hadn't been very forthcoming, and he was thinking that perhaps Chandre hadn't told him everything, although he was pretty certain she hadn't had sex with the sallow-faced professor. He just wasn't her type.

"Don't you only need one of everything?" Snape asked.

"It's for Chandre," Shi said, strapping a snap on his pack and doing a couple of twists so he made sure he could move properly.

"What's if she's dead?" Snape asked.

Shi gave him a thin smile, but his eyes were cold. "They'll be very sorry if she is. I'd have to kill whoever is responsible."

"You'd have to?" Harry asked. "How could you know who killed her?"

"I'd know," Shi said. The oath would mark them, he was quite sure of it. It marked Chandre even in his mind, so he always knew where she was in battle. With her being a telepath, she knew where he was, so it was a perfect arrangement. "All right," he said, looking over his very mottled crew, his face calm, eyes dead. "Everyone ready?"

"You can't go in until after the first group," Dumbledore said. "If they manage to bring everyone out, your work is done."

"If it's light by that time we won't attack," Shi said. "Unless it's just before dawn. Let's go."

They filed out, Shi pulling up his balaclava so it covered his face.

He stared down at the castle from the edge of the woods where they had Apparated. Dark, foreboding, it was exactly what he imagined Voldemort would want to live in, thinking that it was impregnable. Shi's lips curled into a smile, observing the guards on the towers and about the grounds. Getting inside was the easy part.

His smiled faltered as he searched for Chandre's feeling in his mind. Usually it creeped him out that he could feel her, not what she was feeling, just her presence, but now he welcomed it. She was faint, very faint, and he couldn't tell where she was in that hunk of dark rock.

"Shit," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked softly from his elbow.

"Nothing," he replied softly, then drew back from the edge. His plan might need some improvising, not that it was anything solid.

He moved his hand and began creeping back into the forest. They followed belatedly, and he sighed.

"Look," he said as they gathered about him, "when we get in there and afterwards, you are going to follow every order I give you. If you don't, you are probably going to die and kill us too. Follow every damn order I give you, no questions. Understood?"

They nodded, and he turned away, closing his eyes. No time like the present to go in. He could infiltrate anything, after all. It was his motto. Anywhere, anytime, anyplace. But he was with complete amateurs. His gaze flicked to the boys and Snape, following behind him as he moved towards the castle. Life was unfair.


	13. In His Clutches

Chandre woke to the warmth of a fire at her legs and the gentle comfort of a hard bed underneath her. Waking fully, eyes wide as she remembered where she had last been, she struggled to rise, and found that she was shackled to the bed, naked save for a collar about her neck, one that seemed to be blocking her telepathy. She now had no advantages, even if she dared to blast into anyone's head. Suddenly she glanced at her hand, eyes widening to see that it was completely healed, just like in her dreams.

The room, from what she could see, was the exact mirror of her dreams, and she shuddered, stomach clenching in fear, and the sheets rubbed roughly at her skin. There were no windows, nothing in the room save the bed and the fire and the door, the rest was stonewalls and floors and ceiling. She glanced up, eyeing the shackles. They seemed to be longer than she had thought at first, keeping her on the bed by a link eased over a hook. Carefully she rolled over, the chains clinking, and started to unhook herself, flipping the chain up and over.

The door opened and Voldemort glided in at that moment, his eyes widened as he saw her pale body, illuminated by the warm glow of the fire, tense as she saw him. She slipped the loop from the bed and rolled over, undoing the other, then slid off the bed, keeping it between them.

"Timid, my dear?" he asked, laughing in his shrill laugh. Tingles ran up and down her back, and Dark magic was thick at the back of her throat. He moved towards her and she slipped away, the chains clinking and pulling as she walked, very much aware of her limited movement. His lips split into a grin as he followed her, revealing pointy teeth. "I've waited long for this moment. Every time I brought you here, it wasn't the flesh, only the mind." He lunged and she moved back, but the chains caught, and his bony hand closed about hers, flinging her to the bed.

"Why me?" she asked, pulling back as he loomed over her.

"You are my image," he said, crawling up to her, stroking her creamy skin with his white hand. She shuddered at his touch. "Your hate and fear excite me, your beauty entices me, my little murderess. A perfect conquest."

"Not much of a conquest if I'm chained, is it?" Chandre asked, not moving as he touched her, hands exploring her body. She flinched and moved away when a fingernail dug into her flesh just under her breast, drawing blood, and she struggled to get away, but he held her down. Finally, in desperation she bit him in the ear, and he let her go, fingering the blood. Quickly she rolled away, the chains clinking and slithering about on the ground.

"Where are the two girls you took?" she demanded, backing away from him as he advanced. "If you release them, I'll give you whatever you want."

He grinned evilly. "You'll give me whatever I want no matter what I do," he replied.

She swallowed her revulsion and fear, and stepped close to him, pressing against his body, letting her lips trail down his face as her hands slipped inside his robe, exploring him. Slowly she moved downwards, letting her face travel down to his chest, licking and kissing and biting, reaching the end of the robe, where she bit down cruelly at the thin bit of skin she could pull up. He gasped in pleasure, his eyes half-lidded.

Slowly she stood up, running her body against his. No matter how inhuman he might be, he was still human enough to be very, very happy to be with her. "But will I give you this?" she murmured, rubbing her thigh against the fast growing mound under his robes. "Release them and there's more."

He backhanded her and she fell back, the chains rattling. He was over her before she could sit up and she pressed her hands against his chest, pushing back, her nails digging into his skin, drawing blood in ten perfect half-circles. His fingers gripped about her hair, pulling back cruelly and forcing her to look at his face. "Did you think that will work on me?" he growled.

She growled back, realizing that she could not be the prey without a fight. Kicking back at him, she rolled, dodging his hands and fists, and turned around, her body tense, watching him. He rose to his feet, and attacked her, moving with inhuman speed, but she moved to one side just as fast, bringing her fist up and slugging him in the face as her foot lashed out and kicked just above his knee, causing him to fall to the ground, where she leapt, groping for his throat as she straddled him, trying to tear it out.

His hands rose as he tried, closing about her waist, and she slashed at his throat, digging in deep before he lifted her up and threw her against the wall. Landing with a heavy thud, she slid to the ground and rose again, meeting him in the middle of his attack, hands and feet a blur as she attacked. His fist caught in her the jaw and the other in the stomach, but she kept attacking, pummeling as much of his body as she could, until she realized that he was still, watching her rather futile attempts. Slowly she paused, staring up at him and seeing the near fatal wound on his throat close up before her eyes.

Grabbing her by the throat, he slammed her against the wall once more, and, keeping her pinned as she struggled to kick at him, damage him in any way possible, he began to lick her stomach, biting down, drawing blood that he licked from his lips while her body lurched and struggled.

"You cannot win," he purred between licks, and she wrapped one of her chains about his neck, tightening. He reached up a hand and snapped it, then flung her against another wall, a spell cracking above her before she could rise to fight him.

Her eyes widened with pain as her body began to expand, and she gasped and clutched her ribs as they threatened to crack. Suddenly she was released from the spell and another was placed on her, one that opened wounds against her skin, drawing blood. Even though she couldn't see the thing that made the wounds, they still hurt, and by the ninth she was screaming. By the fifteenth she was laying limply on the ground, throat hoarse, back heaving as she sobbed silent sobs. The spell ended, and she was hauled to her feet by her hair, tears streaming down her cheeks as her back was pressed against the wall.

Voldemort sneered down at her, his lips locking with hers in a parody of a kiss. Chandre shoved him off, her strength waning, but he merely rocked back several feet and was back, lips pressed against hers, the cold flesh making her shudder with revulsion, and she tried to push him away again, but the spell had worn her energy away.

When Voldemort realized this, he gave a triumphant laugh and picked her up, carrying her to the bed where he dropped her and released the shackles from her hands and feet.

She watched while he removed his robe, and struggled to rise and fight him, whimpering in horror. He smiled and waved his wand, chanting another incantation.

A spasm of pain ripped through her and she flung herself back onto the bed, moaning as her body spasmed and jolted. Her back arched as she felt the blossom of pain spread through her abdomen and up her chest, burning and leaving her gasping as it subsided.

Another spasm tore through her, and she moaned, clutching her stomach even as her hands were forced wide open and Voldemort straddled her heaving body, watching her suffer with open pleasure.

Her senses were so dazed she never knew when he entered her, but she felt him pressing against her, in time with her spasms, and she heard his raptured pants when she fell into unconsciousness, mouth split open with silent screams.


	14. Bleak Escape

They found the girls first, locked in a cell and chained. It was the flash of a second for Shi to pick the locks, and they were out. Cho had broken an ankle, so he motioned Ron and Hermione over to help her walk, then they went down, looking for Chandre. The girls hadn't seen her, and were surprised that she was there.

He crept down the halls first, melding into the shadows, and jumped a guard coming down from a set of stairs, letting Snape question him with truth serum. The guard stared up at them with a pale face, and told them that he didn't know where his master had taken the pretty witch, but his rooms were up the stairs, she might be there. When asked, he told them that his master had left only minutes before, and probably wouldn't return until later. That was good enough for Shi, and he slit the man's throat, a hand covering his mouth so his screams wouldn't echo through the halls.

The others stared at him, their faces pale behind their balaclavas, the girls close to sobbing. "Let's go," he said, and led the way up the stairs, moving slowly.

He paused some distance up, and motioned for the others to stop. They obeyed, and he crept further, hearing voices. Two guards stood on a landing, their black hoods covering their faces.

"--have a go," one was saying. Shi slipped two throwing stars out of his pocket and into his hand. "I haven't had a cunt that pretty in a while."

The other guard snickered. "'Cept your mother," he chortled. He looked around, cautiously, and Shi had to lean forwards to hear, "We can get in now and have a go. He won't return until tonight and she's unconscious. Nobody'd be the wiser."

The first laughed, and the sound echoed down the stairs. "Let's go then." They turned towards the door.

Shi's throwing stars caught them in the foreheads and they slumped against the wall, instantly dead.

"Come on," Shi hissed, and bounded up the stairs, the rest following him up to the landing.

"What was that for?" Snape asked, staring at the two guards.

"We had to get past them," he murmured, pulling out the stars and sticking them back in his pocket. "Besides, I want to see what's in that room."

"Just some witch they banged," Snape hissed back. The students crowded in to hear the discussion better.

"Even so," Shi replied, and nudged the door. It was unlocked, and a thin light poured through into the darkness as it opened a crack. He couldn't see anything except what looked like the corner of a bed, and poked his head through the door. A figure was sprawled limply across the bed, one hand dangling from the edge, legs splayed. Red hair tumbled everywhere, the same color as the blood covering her body. Shi shoved open the door all the way and turned around, blocking it. "It's Professor Zividia," he murmured, fighting to stay calm. Not dead. Please don't be dead. The students made to come it, but he put a hand on Harry's chest. "I think you'd better stay at the door," he said.

"I'm coming in," Snape announced, having already caught a glimpse. His face was pale and sweat beaded across his forehead, and Shi nodded, opening the door for him. Then he turned and hurried inside to the bed, ripping down his balaclava.

Deep scratches marred her chest, blood red contrasting sharply with moon-white skin, and more blood covered her body and the sheets underneath. He hopped up onto the bed anyway, touching her gently on the cheek, turning her head away and touching her neck under the ugly iron collar with two fingers, crying out when he felt a pulse. Snape coughed behind him and started to gag, staring at Chandre in horror. Ignoring him, Shi brushed the hair from her face, wanting to cry when he saw the dried tears on her cheeks and the blood smeared across her face, almost covering the dark bruises.

Turning away from her face and urging himself to check the rest of her for broken bones, he ran his hands down her body, causing Snape to gasp. Shooting a black look at the man, he bent over her and felt her chest, groaning. At least three ribs were broken, and who knew how many cracked. Nothing else had been broken, but as he looked he saw under the still wet blood dark, ugly bruises and large, raised welts burgeoning across her body.

"Gods, kiddo," he groaned, touching one. He glanced up at Snape, staring in horror at the bed. "We have to wake her up."

Snape was still staring at the mangled body before them, and Shi repeated himself. The professor moved forwards as if dragged, and took out his wand, bright sparks sinking into her skin as he touched the end to her forehead.

Her eyelids flew open and she moaned, wincing. Blinking up at Shi, she suddenly threw him off her, moving backwards, eyes full of a mixture of fear and rage and hatred. "Chandre, kiddo, it's me," he said quietly.

"Prove it," she growled, but tears welled up in her eyes behind the rage, and he realized that she didn't think it was him, but whoever had tortured her in disguise.

"Your sister's name is Arwen," he murmured in her native language, pressed for time but knowing this was needed. "You were born on Saturn."

"Not good enough," she whispered, easing away from him.

"I'm going to kill you," he said softly, switching back to Standard and moving towards her. Snape jerked, his hand on his wand, raising it to him. "You killed the General, and it is my right." It killed him as he said it, reminding her of what lay between them like a deep, unspoken abyss. A scar, the thing that pulled them together and drove them apart, the most secret thing they had between them, something they tried to put out of the way and deal with later, but the fear still crept into her eyes every now and then.

Chandre let him touch her gently on the arm, tears flowing down her cheeks, and she moved forwards, hugging him tightly, body trembling under his hands. Quickly he loosened his hold, fearful of her ribs, and she moved away after several seconds, the blood wet and running down her face with the tears. "I thought you were him," she whispered, more herself.

He became aware of Snape watching them, and pulled a sheet from the bed, handing it to her, helping her off the bed. Then he tied the sheet about her because she couldn't.

"The girls?" she whispered when he stood up, wordlessly handing her his sword and the extra crossbow and quiver, which she slung over her shoulder, strapping the sword about her waist.

"With us. We only need to get out of here," he said, and leaned close, wincing as she flinched. "Are you going to be all right?" he whispered to her ears alone.

Her hand brushed against her chest. "I'll manage," she whispered. Her hand raised and brushed against the iron collar. "Can you get this off me? I think it blocks my telepathy."

There was no clasp or break in the smooth metal, and he shook his head. They were pressed for time. "Can you deal with it?" he asked, and she nodded reluctantly. "Then we've got to go."

The girls and the students gasped in shock when they saw her, and Harry asked if she needed someone to lean against. She shook her head, drawing the sword weakly into her hands. Silently Shi handed her a pick-me-up, and she swallowed it, shuddering as it kicked in.

They huddled on the landing, and Shi said, "Severus is the only one among us who can Apparate, so he'll lead when we reach the door. The rest of you had better keep up with him. Chandre and I will take rear guard when we're outside."

"What if you get hurt?" Harry asked. "Do we stop?"

Shi glanced at Chandre, wanting her to get out of here, to get away from Voldemort. She stared at him levelly, and he nodded slowly. If he was hurt, she'd stay with him, no matter what, never mind what Voldemort had done to her, or what he'd do if he got her back. "If you stop, you could die, and we are certainly the expendable ones in this fair jaunt," he said, trying to put a cheerful tone in his voice and failing. Chandre smiled faintly, and he tried to pull himself together. "I'll take point, then Harry. Ron and Hermione, take Cho between you. Chandre, you and Severus bring up the rear. Move out."

He turned and walked silently down the hall, everyone following him. Chandre walked behind Snape, biting her lip at each step. Everything ached, everything grated roughly, no pick-me-up could stop that, and breathing was painful. She had to pause twice and slow her breathing, each time Snape stopped too, but she waved him on, pulled herself together and went forwards, eyes flicking back and forth around them.

No one accosted them on their way down the dark halls, although she came across several bodies Shi had disposed of, blood splattering the floor and their dark cloaks. A part of her mind wandered, and she pulled it back sharply, driving the pain from her head and focusing on the now. Everything could be dealt with later except the present, that was for the now.

Four Death Eaters attacked the rear as they reached the exit to outside, the first sign of life she had seen in the castle. Sweeping her sword out before her, she plunged it into the chest of one as Snape cast a spell. He dispatched another while she grunted and swung her sword, half-severing the head of the last, and the body crumpled to the ground. Her ribs burned, but she pushed that out of her head.

Shi shoved the door open and looked around, then pushed the students out first, ordering them to run. Snape paused, but Shi gave him a shove and he ran too, taking the lead running towards the trees as the Death Eaters swarmed, chasing them.

"Run!" Shi yelled at them, and flung several throwing stars at the nearest Death Eaters, and Chandre shot at them with her crossbow.

Suddenly she dropped it, tightened her grip on her sword and turned, grabbing Shi's arm as he prepared to fight and ran, charging off in the opposite direction Snape and the students had gone, her bare feet leaving deep imprints in the snow.

"What are you doing?" Shi yelled.

"Buying them safety," she replied. Her lungs burned and her vision blackened, but death waited for her if she stopped or slowed. Shi grasped her plan and shoved them towards the woods, running alongside her while the Death Eaters came, chasing them.

Spells sizzled through the air about them, singing their skin but missing them, and they kept going, thinking only of escape, both knowing that it was pointless, but not letting it bother them.

They reached the edge of the forest and plunged inside, snapping twigs and brushing aside looming branches, caution pushed back in their need for speed.

"Hold on," Shi gasped, grabbing her arm as soon as the reached the spot where "Muggle" things would work. She paused with him, watching while he pulled out a grenade from his tunic and unpinned it, dropping it on the ground as the Death Eaters neared. They turned and ran, Shi counting. At nine, he tackled her and drove her to the ground as a huge bang shook the forest, rattling trees and sending branches and leaves flying, along with body parts and blood.

Chandre spared only a backward glance to the blackened crater, and moved on, following Shi deeper into the woods, knowing that that would only slow the Death Eaters down.


	15. Voldemort's Revenge

They ran for two hours before she had to slow, and then walked, moving silently through the thick, silent forest, Chandre stumbling and shivering, her feet ice-blue blocks of unfeeling flesh. A snapping twig sounded like a gun in the utter stillness, and they moved even more quietly.

She fingered her collar as she went, wondering why Voldemort hadn't shown up. They had destroyed half of his forces and rescued two of his prisoners, after all. And if he truly wanted her, then he would have surely shown up and gotten her, although she wasn't so sure why he wanted her, of all people.

She shivered, clutching her arms about her, and Shi removed his jacket, settling it about her shoulders. She would have protested, but he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and at least there wasn't that much snow in the forest, so he wouldn't freeze that quickly. "Thanks," she murmured, teeth chattering as she slipped it on. She tripped over another root, but felt nothing from her feet, even though she suspected that at least three toes were broken.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while of silence.

"Why?" she asked.

"Didn't bring you any clothes."

"You couldn't have anticipated finding my like that," she said, and glanced down at her makeshift garment.

"What did Voldemort want from you?" he asked, even softer now, as if not to hurt her.

"I don't know," she replied. "I guess because I look like him."

He glanced at her sharply. "You look nothing like him."

"He said I was the perfect conquest," she added, glancing away.

Shi slipped an arm about her waist. "You are," he said softly.

"I'm glad to know I have a rival," a cold voice behind them said.

They broke apart and whirled around, eyes wide as Voldemort stepped into the clearing they had just entered, completely alone, but he might have had Death Eaters hiding in the nearby bushes, waiting to attack at a signal from their master. Voldemort pointed a finger at her, positively enraged. "You," he said, looking at her. "You I did not give permission to leave." He gestured and the collar about her neck began to glow and burn. She cried out in pain, hands trying to wrench it off and themselves burning. Falling to her knees, she gasped and choked as it tightened about her throat, her peace of mind shattered as waves of pain roiled throughout her body, overwhelming her.

Voldemort turned to Shi before he could reach her side, and her partner froze, staring at the Dark Lord with complete hatred. "And you," Voldemort hissed, missing the danger lying in those gray eyes. "Trying to take what is mine. Nobody tries and gets away with it."

"She's not yours for the taking," Shi growled, voice thick with hate.

"And you lay claim to her?" Voldemort asked, incredulous. "A Muggle like yourself."

"I lay claim to what is mine," Shi said. "Written and bound in blood. Even you cannot break that."

"What could be so precious to bind it in blood?" Voldemort asked, sounding amused. Chandre whimpered on the ground, tears rolling down her face from the pain, and her breath came in wheezing gasps. Voldemort kicked her and she quieted, her breathed ragged.

"Her death," Shi said softly. "And everything that lies between," he added, lying through his teeth with such conviction that Chandre believed him. "You cannot take her. Not with all of the money in the world."

Voldemort's lips curled. "And what do I care about ownership?" he asked, and raised his wand, the words of a spell on his lips.

"Stop!" Chandre cried, and he paused, both men looking down at her. She thought fast, trying to keep Shi from being killed. "P-please don't kill him, my-my Lord," she said, grating each word out like a struggle from hate. She crawled towards him. "If he dies before the oath is fulfilled, then a terrible, terrible curse will be released on this earth." She groaned in pain and coughed, blood flecking her lips. "His spirit will haunt you and kill you, and he will devour you and roam the earth, destroying all you sought to create."

"Why should I believe you?" Voldemort asked coldly.

"Because," Chandre gasped, tugging at her collar, "I will be the first to die."

Shi growled and kicked her, falling into his part perfectly. She fell back and whimpered, clutching her head, acting thoroughly cowed. Pain blasted through her as her ribs slid and crunched. "You idiot!" he snarled. "How dare you tell him! I ordered you never to do so!" He kicked her again, moving her closer to her dropped sword.

"Yes master," she gasped, sobbing harder, afraid of him in a very real way. It didn't take a telepath to know that he was going to blow very soon, his rage was so huge and now thinly controlled.

"Enough!" Voldemort yelled, and they looked up at him. "Curse or no curse, you die now!" He pointed his wand at Shi, who launched himself at the other man, foaming at the lips. He had lost complete control of himself, but she hadn't noticed, having jumped as well, heading for Voldemort, her sword in her hands, desperate to kill him before Shi did.

A spell rocketed through the clearing behind the Dark Lord, taking Voldemort in the back and sending him and his attackers flying. Shi rose before all and paced towards Voldemort, daggers flashing as the other rose. Chandre scrambled to her feet but fell back, leg broken. Dumbledore ran into the clearing, but too late; Voldemort had already cast his spell, catching him full in the chest as her partner slammed each dagger into a glowing red eye, and the Dark Lord screamed, clutching them and Disapparating, shrieking revenge. Shi had crumpled to the ground even before the screams began, limp.

When the Dark Lord left, Chandre's collar stopped burning and she crawled towards Shi, checking for a pulse. It was there, but slowly fading away, and she cursed, staring into his fast-glazing eyes.

"He's dying," Dumbledore said, kneeling beside her.

"No," she gasped, not believing. Not Shi. She had always believed she'd be the first to die of them. She looked up at Dumbledore. "Do something."

"I can't," the headmaster said softly, watching her sadly. "I'm so sorry."

Chandre stared at the still face of her partner, and snarled, "Take off my collar." Mystified, he obeyed, touching his wand and breaking it apart. Instantly her telepathy flooded back to her, and she touched his forehead, feeling his pulse fade away completely. Without a moment's thought she slammed through his carefully preserved defenses, diving down into his dying mind, searching for his core.

Reaching it, she cupped it in her "hands," feeling it start to freeze and harden. She screamed mentally, and began to warm it with her own life force, wishing she wasn't so weak, too weak to keep her partner alive. She just didn't have enough energy to warm that cold lump, and it was slowly fading away under her.

Someone touched her body, and she felt energy pour into her, giving her the strength she needed. Her tendrils of thought glowed around Shi's core, warming it and sending it to a bright, vibrant red. She was aware of a body heaving under her hands, and felt herself loosing her connection to her own mind, and slowly she pulled herself out of his mind as a gigantic force shoved her flying backwards through his broken wall and into her own mind. She shuddered upon reentry and gasped at the unfairness of it all, then collapsed, the pain overwhelming her.


	16. Recuperation

Cools hands brushed her forehead, caressing it lightly, cooling down the fever that burned inside her, making her toss and turn and shudder and scream at the monsters that chased her. A voice told her to wake up, but she couldn't, not with everything that had happened. She didn't want to see, didn't want to know how she had destroyed Shi, didn't want to wake up to the pain, back in Voldemort's clutches. But the cool hands were insistent that she come out, and she was tempted, but the voice was harsh and demanding.

The voice changed over time, becoming softer, gentler, the hands warmer. The new voice spoke with her gently, cajoling, pleading, and finally begging her to wake. It was the begging that opened her eyes. Begging didn't belong to that voice. That voice was strong and soft and it didn't need to beg to get what it wanted.

Her eyes peeled open, narrowing at the sharp, harsh light. The warm hands touched her forehead, smoothing aside a strand of unruly hair, and the voice murmured in happiness. Her eyes closed again and she fell into a true sleep, without dreams or monsters or voices.

She woke again, clear-headed, to a weight at her right side, warming her. The weight breathed, slow and steady and heavily as the person at her side slept. Carefully she looked down and saw Shi's familiar head, blond hair cut in its military buzz, a tad too long of being correct. His face was turned away from her, head leaning against the bed while the rest of him was in a chair, one arm cradling his head. Slowly she raised a hand and touched him, making sure he was real.

He jolted awake and faced her, his face lined with exhaustion, but clearing slightly with a happy smile. "Finally," he drawled as if it was just another morning, and she had overslept. "I thought you'd never wake up."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He shrugged. "The last of the pills washed through me yesterday, so I'm doing pretty well. How are you feeling, kiddo?" He gently touched her cheek with one hand.

"Like shit," she groaned. "How long was I out?"

"It's Holiday break now," he said. "About four days." His face froze and he looked away, throat moving up and down. He rapidly blinked back tears, still facing away from her. "Fuck. Don't do that to me again. It scares me."

She took his hand, holding it, keeping it pressed to her face. "Your berserking scares me," she whispered. He pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her hair, and she held him tightly, not protesting the pain he was causing her, for she need him as much as he needed her at the moment.

"Thank you for saving my life," he whispered, and she moved her head against his shoulder, lips brushing his neck.

"We're even," she whispered back, and he held her a little tighter, breath coming in ragged, uneven space, his shoulder shuddering. She cried too, tears streaming down her face, both silent.

"Ah, you're awa--oh, pardon me," Madam Pomfrey said, coming through the makeshift cloth door. They broke away, Chandre dabbing at her cheeks, Shi wiping his nose with a sleeve.

"Er, come in," Chandre said, but the nurse had already swept in, skirts swishing. Chandre realized that she was in the infirmary, cloth curtains partitioning her off from the rest of the room.

Before the nurse began to check on her, though, she glanced at Shi, catching him yawning behind his hand, and rounded on him. "You!" she said, shaking a finger at him. "You are going to go up to your room and you are going to sleep." Shi opened his mouth to protest, but she continued, "She'll be fine. She's awake and then she'll go back to sleep. You need to leave and get some sleep or you'll be back in here in a cot of your own. I let you in here because she was sick, but now she's just weak and so you can leave. Get out! Scat!" She chased him away, although he looked on the verge of arguing, but the blast of female force drove him away, with one last look towards her, then he fled for the door. If he had a tail it would have been tucked between his legs. Chandre almost laughed. She had never seen her partner in such full retreat before.

Pomfrey turned back to Chandre, and frowned. Chandre swallowed her laughter. "And you," the nurse said. "You should be lying down." She pushed her back onto the bed. "You're not going to ruin my handiwork for you." Chandre obeyed, and took the vial potion the nurse gave her, almost spitting it all back out again in disgust.

"Would you like something to eat?" Pomfrey asked, taking back the vial.

"Anything," Chandre gasped. She was ravenous.

"Then I'll have the kitchens send something up. Meanwhile, you rest. If I see you even think about getting out of that bed I'll put a Leg-Lock spell on you." Giving her a look that said she meant it, Pomfrey swept back out of the room.

Or so she thought, as several moments later the curtain slipped aside, and she groaned, thinking it was Pomfrey coming back for her. "I swear I wasn't think--oh, Dumbledore, it's you," she said, staring as the Headmaster entered the room, carrying a tray filled with food.

"Indeed it is," he said, setting the tray down beside her, and poured them both some tea. There was enough for two people to eat, and he took a sandwich, nibbling it delicately. She had already attacked hers, half-devouring it.

"That was very brave of you, facing down Voldemort," Dumbledore said.

She shook her head. "I didn't. That was Shi."

"Ah," he said, looking amused. "But immediately after he attacked, you did as well. Were you trying to save him, then?"

"No. I was trying to kill him before Shi did. He's a bit . . . vicious, when he berserks like that."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "He's done it before? He didn't mention it when we were talking."

"Once, that I've seen," Chandre admitted slowly.

"Was he protecting you, the first time?"

"Uh, no, actually. I'd rather not talk about it, it's not my place. If Shi wants to tell you, then--" She paused. "Why did you ask if he was protecting me?"

"I was just wondering what your feelings were for each other," he said, hesitantly. "Out of curiosity, nothing more."

"If you're thinking we're lovers, we're not and never have been," she said instantly, adding, "or ever will be."

He smiled slightly. "That's what he said, if in a different tone." Before she could dissect that, he added, "I understand now, why you aren't. That oath is rather, interesting. Both written and bound by blood, hmm. I thought servitude was outlawed, in all its forms. I might be mistaken, though."

That brought a laugh from her. "I don't belong to Shi," she said. "Or anybody. The belonging part just popped out, so Voldemort wouldn't kill him."

"Shi said the oath was for your death," Dumbledore said. "And you agree. Could you explain, forgiving an old man his curiosity?"

She looked down at her hands and took another bite of her sandwich. "I'd rather not. It's fairly personal, but I deserve it and I agree with him completely."

"Even so, with something like between you, I'm amazed you work together so well and don't hate each other," Dumbledore said.

Chandre shrugged, and winced in pain. "At first we distrusted each other, but weren't allowed to not be partners. But we're too much alike to not like each other, I think. It took a while, but I trust him completely." She stared into Dumbledore's blue eyes.

"As I trust you," Shi said from the doorway, startling them. He glanced behind him and slipped inside. "I sneaked in when she wasn't looking," he confided. "Old bat runs this place like a prison. Nothing in or out." He took a seat at the foot of her bed, saw the sandwiches and began to eat.

"Is Voldemort dead?" Chandre asked.

"No. Considerably weakened, but not dead," Dumbledore said.

"And the kids?" she asked.

"They and Snape followed Shi's orders exactly and made it out without so much more than some scratches. They came to me and told me how you separated from them," Dumbledore said. "They were ashamed when I brought you two back looking how you did, and have been stopping by here quite a bit."

"They shouldn't be ashamed," Chandre said, frowning. "They were following orders, without being heroic and getting themselves killed."

"That's what I said," Shi told her, whispering in case Pomfrey had her ear pressed against the cloth curtain.

Dumbledore noticed her flagging energy, and rose. "I'd better let you sleep, or Pomfrey will have my head." He picked up the tray and nodded then left.

Pomfrey returned shortly after, the swishing of her skirts alerting Shi, who ducked underneath the partition into another sick room. After giving her another vile potion, she left, ordering Chandre to sleep. Shi ducked back in moments, sitting back down on the bed, closer to her.

Chandre yawned and peered at him through his lashes. "Don't stare at me like that," she said. "It's creepy."

He patted her good knee. "I don't want Voldemort to take you away without a fight," he said stubbornly.

"What're you going to do, yawn him to death?" she asked. He looked thoughtful, and she held her arms out to him. "Sleep next to me before you fall over."

He grinned and settled down beside her, the bed just barely big enough for the two of them, so he shifted until he was spooned tightly against her, wrapping one arm about her waist, below her fragile ribs. She twisted until she faced him and put her arm about his narrow waist, under his arm, and fell asleep, head on his chest. He fell asleep seconds later, just as exhausted as she.

Pomfrey came back to check on her, and found them curled in each other's arms, fast asleep. She stared at them, tsked softly, and left, having too much heart to wake them and move him. She had seen the tears on their faces.


	17. Jailbreak

Two days later Chandre was still in the infirmary, the bruises taking longer to heal than Pomfrey had thought, and her leg was still knitting back together, but Chandre knew that she could have left, she was well enough for it. She had no idea why Pomfrey was keeping her in the infirmary, but she suspected that it was because the older woman wanted to make sure that she stayed off her feet and slept. Chandre had had enough of sleep. She was still exhausted, but had slept more than she had in a very long time, and it was getting old.

At least she wasn't alone for most of the day. Harry and Ron visited her every once in a while, as they had stayed behind for the holidays, and Dumbledore stopped by occasionally, mostly to have tea. Some of the other professors came, more because she thought that Pomfrey had told them to than anything else. Snape never came, although Shi told her that he had been almost constantly by her side when she was unconscious, something that scared her a little. And of course Shi was almost constantly with her, although he had a life, and was off for various bits and pieces of the day, doing whatever it was he did when he wasn't with her. He had buttered up Pomfrey enough to get her to let him sleep with his partner during the night, something Chandre was highly grateful for. She didn't think she could spend the night alone.

Personally, she was impressed by the way that he had charmed the older woman, using most of the charisma he had to soften her up and let him do almost anything. She wasn't so impressed when, to flatter the nurse, he had force fed her a potion she had flatly refused to drink and Pomfrey couldn't get her to.

He came to visit her on the second day as dusk fell through the windows. She was sitting on her bed, staring out the window, arms crossed in sulkiness. A childish reaction, but she was feeling childish at the moment. She was sick of sitting here watching everyone play in the thick white snow and having a good time outside while she was stuck sitting on her ass or lying down. She was sick of watching Shi join in the snow fights, and while she grinned at his antics, and how whatever team he was on won so much until he was banned from playing altogether. Harry and Ron told her that until she was well and could play he was banned, because they hoped that she could even the score against him and get his team, whichever it was, to finally lose.

"I'm bored," she complained as he walked over to her, hands behind his back.

"You could not possibly have finished all of those puzzles," he said. He was grinning rather devilishly, she thought, and she wondered who he had shoved in the snow last.

"I had a lot of time."

He brought his hands from behind his back and dumped two handfuls of snow down her shirt before she could fight him off. "Maybe this'll take your mind of it," he said as she yelped in surprise, trying to brush the snow off her.

Shi laughed wickedly as she dug into her shirt and pulled out snow, her face so utterly miserable he could only laugh harder, so hard that he couldn't dodge when she threw the snow at him in little clumps. Pomfrey hurried over when the quiet of her infirmary was threatened, and blanched at the sight.

"What a mess!" she cried, even though there were only two clumps of snow on the ground, the rest either on Shi or down Chandre's shirt. Looking at Shi, she said, "Young man, clean this mess up at once."

"Of course, Madam Pomfrey," he replied, hiding an amused grin. "I was just keeping Professor Zividia's mind off her boredom. She was complaining, so I just tried to lighten things up a little. You know," he added, giving Pomfrey a confidential smile, "if she leaves the infirmary she won't be such a pain."

Pomfrey frowned. "She put you up to this, didn't she?" she asked suspiciously.

Shi looked affronted. "Of course not! I just wanted her out of your hair, so she won't bother you at all. She'll be on her feet tomorrow anyways."

"And you'd make sure that she didn't stand up until then?" Pomfrey asked, looking interested despite herself.

"I would," Shi said promptly. "She doesn't even think about disobeying me, and if she does, she'll regret it." He patted the nurse's arm and gave her a disarming smile, flashing white teeth. "Don't worry about a thing. She'll stay off her feet and she'll even drink some of that wonderful potion you make for her every night."

"All right," Pomfrey said grudgingly, but frowned sternly. "Just don't let her on her feet, or I'll put you in the infirmary myself! Understand?"

Shi nodded earnestly, and Pomfrey practically beamed. "Thank you," she said, and stroked his arm. "That is one of the worst patients I've ever had."

"I know," nodded Shi sympathetically. He walked to Chandre's bed and she wrapped her arms about his neck, letting him pick her up although the ice was still mostly down her shirt. Her back to Pomfrey, she glowered at him. Promfrey handed him the potion, which he took in one hand, tucking it into a pocket. To the nurse, he said, "I won't let her on her feet until noon tomorrow, ma'am. And she'll stay out of your hair completely." The nurse nodded, showing just how relieved she was to finally see Chandre out the door, and Shi muttered to his partner, "Lose some pounds, will you?"

He carried her out the door, moving quickly so Pomfrey couldn't change her mind. A corner and four staircases later, he muttered, "Is she following?" Chandre looked behind them and shook her head, and he set her down in the nearest alcove, straightening with a groan.

"Don't be so dramatic," she said, watching him stretch. "I don't weigh that much."

"I just walked up four flights of stairs!" he exclaimed, sitting down beside her with a groan. "All for you."

"Consider it payback for the snow. Thanks for busting me out of there, I was going crazy. And now, freedom!" She began to rise to her feet to walk, but Shi shoved her back down. "Hey!" she protested, trying to rise, but he held her down. "Shi, you're not helping me here!"

"Just following orders, kiddo," he said, and took the potion from his pocket and shook it in front of her face. "Gotta stay in Madam's good graces, you know."

Her jaw dropped in shock. "I thought you were joking!" He shook his head slowly, an evil grin forming on his face. "You wouldn't," she gasped, and he only grinned broader, slipped the potion in his pocket and stood, wrapping her arm about his shoulder and expertly pulling her into his arms for the next two flights of stairs.

Chandre watched with interest as he kicked the door open to their room and closed it again with his foot without slamming it. "How often do you do this?" she asked curiously as he pulled back the covers and dumped her on the bed. "You didn't hit my head on the doorjamb or anything."

"Many, many times," he replied smugly, sitting down beside her. "Although normally I don't have to walk up six flights of stairs to get to the bed, and the reward is much sweeter."

She flushed, but patted him on the arm. "Just shows how much you care."

He grunted, and handed her the potion. "Drink it or I'll shove it down your throat."

Grumbling, she took it and drained the entire thing, almost coughing it back up onto his face from the bitter taste. Handing him back the vial, she undressed and pulled the covers back over her, watching as he undressed and lay down, the muscles on his back rippling. As he settled to sleep she edged closer to him, wrapping her arm about his back and pressing herself against him for warmth and comfort, her face resting against his shoulder.


	18. Playful Fighting

"Dodge this!" The missile whizzed through the air and smacked against Hagrid's cheek and the huge man roared, then joined the rest of the dead, who sat patiently on the sidelines, watching the massive snow fight commence.

Chandre crowed as another of her snowballs hit home, and ducked behind her fort as a volley was launched her way. One of her team fell, and she rallied the rest, standing up behind the wall and throwing snowballs as fast as she could with both hands, hitting many of the other's teams players.

"Nooo!" Shi cried as his army was defeated one by one, and threw himself to the ground when Chandre hurled a snowball his way.

"My people!" he yelled, voice muffled through his wall. His hands set snowballs along his wall as he lamented on the good people of Shindleria, who had fought the war against the evil tyrant of Chandre, who was threatening their people. He went on, elaborating on his tale as he continued to make snowballs behind the wall while the remaining fighters fought on and "died" spectacularly. Chandre laughed at his story, and began setting up her own snowballs, stopping the fighting for a brief time as the last of Shi's fighters fell, and they all began a production line, mittened hands working furiously.

Shi rose suddenly from behind the wall and hurled white balls at everyone, hands a blur. Chandre started throwing as many as she could, and they ducked back behind their walls again, Chandre down two players.

"All right troops," she said, wiping a sheen of sweat from under her wool hat. "We're going to split the forces and attack at both sides, cornering him and pinning him down. It's just one man, we can take him. Ron, Hermione, you take left, Ginny, come with me to the right."

The attack was a complete success, and Shi fell to a barrage of snowballs, several hitting him full in the face. Only Ron had been hit, and she and her troops ran around Shi's fortress, whooping wildly for their victory, the rest of their team coming back from the dead to join them.

"Yeaah! Hail Professor Zividia, the one who slayed the monster!" her team cried, and she laughed, dancing with them.

"Hey, that's not fair," Shi said from the sidelines, brushing snow from the inside of his shirt. "I'm really just a nice guy, you know. I never asked for this, this brutal torment." He grimaced and pulled a clump of snow from his pants.

Professor Babcock grinned from where he stood on Chandre's side. "Ha, you're just sore because your team lost--for once," he said. "And we found a better commander."

"Traitor," Shi muttered, glowering at Chandre. She grinned and stuck out her tongue at him. He threw a snowball at her, and she dodged it, but was tackled by him. Her teammates threw themselves on him, and then his team got involved until it was one big dogpile, with her on the bottom. Gasping for breath and laughing, she tickled Shi's sides and wiggled free from the pile, staggering out and laughing at them as they kept wrestling and trying to get out. Shi was one of the last to be let up, and he came out looking very ruffled.

"New game!" Harry cried, and they all lined up for teams. Chandre and Shi obediently split up onto opposite sides of the line.

"Naw," Babcock said. "How about us against you two? I want to see what you can do."

"Now that's not very fair," Shi replied.

"For us or them?" Chandre asked him from across the line. "If you ask me, they're out numbered."

"Precisely what I was thinking," her partner replied, and, as the smaller army, they chose their fortress, building it up before the battle began.

The battle progressed quickly, with them soon leaving their fortress to venture off on joint attacks, taking out quite a few of the others, but not enough. Chandre narrowly dodged a lot of snowballs, feeling them brush against her, and soon she was huddling beside the fortress alongside Shi, two snowballs in her fists.

"They're better than I anticipated," Shi said, slightly surprised. "Actually learned from our tactics and using them against us. Improving 'em, even."

She grinned. "Time to cheat."

"I love working with you," he grinned back. "Full combat?"

"Oh yeah."

A snowball flew over their heads and landed with a splat against the far wall. The enemy was closing. Quickly they launched a barrage of snowballs, catching the students creeping up on their walls. Then Shi bent down and she put her foot in his hand. There wasn't much cover where they were, but behind the other fortress there were several snowmen and a couple of snow-covered fortresses. It was a good thing the gravity on this planet was fairly light, and he boosted her up, her jumping with him, and she flew high up into the air, twisting around and hitting the students as she fell.

Landing like a cat in the snow, she dodged away from the students, who quickly through balls of snow at her. Ducking behind a snowman, she bent and made several snowballs, turned and let fly, narrowing pulling back from a snowball that streaked past her face.

But the damage was done. The student's forces were separated, and with her able to use every sort of cover possible, it didn't take long for Shi to join her and work their way through them.

After the last final barrage of snowballs, the last defenders fell, and the two assassins high-fived.

"Hey, no fair!" cried Angelina, and threw a snowball at them. They ducked, and it flew, hitting the person behind them. Her face went pale, and Chandre and Shi turned around, coming face-to-face with Snape, who stared at them with deep-seated loathing, although she noticed that that loathing was directed mostly at her partner. Then he swept back inside, brushing off the remnants of the snowball from his robes.

After that Chandre and Shi were kept on opposite teams, which they didn't mind too much. After that rather spectacular fight, her team tended to lose more often than win, but she put up a good fight, and it was always close. Other players were good, though, like Lee Jordan and Angelina, and they played well, willing to take a snowball in the face without flinching.


	19. Malfoy's Livid Revenge

School had to resume, of course, and with it came the end of the term in several weeks. In that time, the students improved greatly, and they even managed to learn a little swordplay. During that time, fewer and fewer hate-messages came, which relieved them both greatly, and more and more students came for afterschool lessons until practically all of their time was taken up.

One day, as she was teaching them a way to defend themselves against a larger attacker, when the door slammed open. Each of her students whirled around, settling in the proper defensive position, wooden swords raised, and she was about to praise then when she saw who was stalking through the door.

With his pale skin and white-blond hair, there was no mistaking the man for Lucuis Malfoy, Draco's father, and he was absolutely livid about something. "Professor Zividia," he spat, face flushing a deep red when he saw her. He made it way over to where she stood, her wooden sword resting against the ground.

"Yes?" she asked as pleasantly as she could, trying to force the irritation from her voice. Shi stared at the man, his eyes narrowed in dislike. "If it isn't important, please leave, Mr. Malfoy. We're teaching a class."

Apparently something she said was wrong, because his face paled and he trembled, fists clenched into balls. "It is of utmost importance," he said, drawing his wand and pointing it at her.

"Class dismissed," Shi said softly, but his voice carried in the still room.

"Don't move!" Malfoy snapped, and everyone froze. "Move and I'll blow her brains out."

"Out," Shi said, and they hovered in indecision. "Out!" he barked, irritated, and they fled, leaving their poles in a pile and grabbing their things. Shi walked quietly over to them and pulled one aside, speaking quickly and low; the girl nodded and headed off at full speed. Her partner turned around and moved around the other man, hands raised slightly to show that he was unarmed. For the moment.

Chandre leaned against her sword. "Quit pointing that wand at me, sir, or you'll face the consequences. I believe we can move faster than you can speak."

The wand stayed raised, but the man's voice trembled slightly with rage when he spoke. "My Draco was right," he snarled. "This school is running to hell. Letting Muggles teach classes--"

"Muggle doesn't apply to us, sir," Shi said. Malfoy turned to him. "So take care at how you use it."

"What are you doing here, Mr. Malfoy?" Chandre asked. The man had to turn to see them both, as they were standing at nearly opposite angles to him. "You have no business here. Your son was expelled months ago--"

"My son is dead!" Malfoy roared, and his wand spat green sparks. Chandre jumped, but they didn't reach her.

"My condolences," she said without meaning it.

"You killed him!" Malfoy cried, and took a step forwards. She stepped back, frowning in confusion.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," she said flatly.

"You killed him," he repeated, and she realized that he was absolutely mad with grief. "When you escaped from Lord Voldemort's castle, you killed him."

"I only killed two Death Eaters," she said, confused. "None were your son's size."

Malfoy snarled, lips curling. "How dare you deny your crime!" he hissed, moving towards her. "My son is dead and your hands are stained with his blood!"

"You can stop harassing my partner now," Shi said quietly. "Especially for a crime she didn't commit."

Malfoy turned on him, shaking even harder from rage. "How would you know!" he asked, froth building up on his lips.

"I killed Draco Malfoy," Shi said calmly.

Chandre stared at him. "Why?" she asked. The boy was only a child, after all, even if he had gone over to the wrong side and betrayed her, Cho and Hermione and the other teachers. She didn't like the boy, but that didn't give him the right to die.

"He was in my way," Shi replied. "And he would have raised an alarm had I let him live. So please, direct your anger towards me, Mr. Malfoy, because I am itching to get another Death Eater in my hands. Especially after what you did to my partner." He advanced towards Malfoy, a crazy glint in his eyes.

"You couldn't kill me," Malfoy said, looking for the first time somewhat scared. "You wouldn't dare."

"Would I?" Shi asked. He smiled ferally and spread his hands as Dumbledore and several other Professors ran through the door. "It would be my pleasure."

"Drop your wand," Chandre commanded, and Malfoy did, seeing the others come in. Shi dropped his hands and shook himself, as if trying to relieve himself of an unscratchable itch.

"Lucius Malfoy, what are you doing in my school?" Dumbledore asked, moving swiftly towards them.

Abashed, but undeterred, Malfoy pointed his finger at Shi, "That man killed my son," he spat. While his attention was diverted, Chandre edged over and toed his wand closer to her, bent and picked it up.

Dumbledore looked at Shi. "I don't deny it," her partner replied calmly. He looked at Malfoy. "Nor am I sorry."

"You see!" Malfoy cried, spitting froth. "He admits it! On your honor, Albus, you had better throw that man into Azkaban and swallow the key!"

"I don't like having my honor preached to by a Death Eater," Dumbledore said. His voice was very soft, and Chandre realized that this was him very angry. "Lucius, I regret the death of your son, but I can't say he didn't deserve what he got. It doesn't excuse the deaths, but Professor Shindle was doing his job--"

"He's a murderer!" Malfoy cried.

"What makes you think your son is the only one I've killed?" Shi asked. Malfoy stared at him. "Just because it's your flesh and blood you finally notice?"

Someone snorted from behind them, and they turned to see Snape, arms crossed and scoffing. "Hell, Lucius," he sneered. "It's his job. Don't you get it, yet? They're both assassins, and they're on our side." He spread his arms out to indicate the room. "I admit, Lucius, I had hopes for Draco, but he went bad. Just like you."

"He killed my son!" Malfoy screeched. "They should be killed!"

"It's what you scum deserve," snarled McGonagell. "I call it rightful payback. Consider how many of us you killed. How many Muggles. How many innocents. One son does not pay that back."

"Those . . . those bastards will be responsible for all of your deaths!" Malfoy cried.

Shi tensed, but Chandre gave him a sharp glance. He was rather touchy about that word, seeing as it was true in his case.

"'Those bastards'," Dumbledore said calmly, "are responsible for saving quite a few students from Death Eaters. Your people. It does not excuse them for their jobs, but they have a sense of justice that doesn't let them kill the innocent. I can guarantee your son died quickly and without torment. Can you say the same for those you killed?"

Malfoy's mouth opened and shut. "They're monsters!" he yelled, raising his voice as loud as he could. "They deserve to die!"

"You are only including yourself in the same category," Dumbledore said quietly, "and condemning yourself."

"You dare compare me to them?" the man hissed. He reached for the wand that wasn't there and turned, eyes flashing when Chandre held it up.

"I should hope not," Shi scoffed. "We're monsters, but at least we have finesse."

Chandre snorted. "No kidding. If you had killed one of my family, I wouldn't have confronted you in a classroom filled with gossiping students. I'd have killed you in the middle of the night, while you were safe in your own house, in your own bed, your wife by your side. I would have made it look like she killed you, out of grief for her son."

"I like that idea," Shi said, staring at Malfoy as if he were a particularly interesting insect. "It has a certain . . . something to it." He pursed his lips and nodded. "Yes. I like that idea very much."

Malfoy was slowly moving from outraged to angry to somewhat doubtful to beginning to be frightened. The other teachers were slightly revolted at their associates' strange and out of order behavior, and looked as though they were believing Chandre and Shi perfectly. She thought sadly that they were ruining all of the trust they had built up over the course of the year, but watched Malfoy as he slowly began to comprehend that they were completely serious.

"I'll have the Ministry of Magic after you, Dumbledore!" he cried, turning to the Headmaster. "You can't harbor these creatures here any longer! They're a danger to everyone in this school."

"I suggest you leave now, Lucius, and let us continue on with our classes," Dumbledore said. "You've disrupted enough of the day. Professor McGonagell, accompany him to the exit and give him his wand back. If he attempts to reenter, you have my word to stop him however you wish." McGonagell looked slightly triumphant. Chandre threw Lucius' wand towards her and she left, it in one hand, her wand in the other, and Lucius in front of her, looking as though he were going to explode.

"We're going to get more letters from parents," Snape said after they had left. "Lucius will tell everyone about them, and how dangerous they are."

"Thank you, Severus, for your opinion," Dumbledore said. "I'd like to talk to them on their own." Snape nodded, looking slightly dismayed over not being in the meeting, and left.

Shi watched the teachers leave a little sadly, and looked at the ground. He really didn't like to be seen as a monster. "We can be leave in five minutes," he said.

"What are you talking about?" Dumbledore asked. "You've got finals to hold in two days. No one will talk all that much in that time, and then you'll be off this planet, probably never to return." He smiled sadly. "I know of the odds against your living much longer," he said.

"Yeah, our life expectancy sucks," Shi admitted. Chandre nodded in agreement. At the rate she was going, she didn't expect to see twenty.

"Enough of this depressing talk," Dumbledore said. "I would like it, if you are able, to come back when you have retired and settled into some safer business. But you have five days left here, so I would like you to get on with your lessons." He nodded, and left the room.


	20. Term's End

Finals went by smoothly, as they had one on one exams between each student, and Chandre finished her last just after Shi, utterly exhausted. He had already left for a shower, so she locked up the armory, preparing to leave the classroom when Harry came down the hall.

"Uh, Professor Zividia," he said, "can I speak with you?"

"What is it?" she asked.

"I-is Professor Shindle in there?" Harry asked.

"No," she replied.

Harry looked relieved and said, "I-I just want to ask you a couple of questions." He took a deep breath, like he was about to plunge down a dark tunnel. "Are you--I mean, do you--no, that's not it . . ." He looked fit to run down the hall away, but she cocked her head and leaned against the door, shutting it tightly behind her.

He took another deep breath, and asked, "How come you and Professor Shindle don't hate each other, even though he's going to kill you later on?"

She blinked, surprised. That certainly had not been the question she was expecting. She must have looked very startled, because Harry blurted, "I just--it's just that there's this prophecy, and either Voldemort or I are going to die because of it. It's just that I wanted to know what it feels like--"

"Let's take a walk," Chandre interrupted, pushing herself wearily off the wall, walking down the hall and out of the castle. Outside it was cold, and she shivered, but kept walking, taking the trail around the lake, Harry following her in silence.

When they were a fair distance away, she said, "I felt you might want some more privacy. What's this about you and Voldemort?"

"There's this prophecy that says both of us cannot live unless the other dies," Harry said. He sounded slightly nervous. "I--I don't want to die, but I don't want to kill anyone either." He looked up at her blank face, and continued, "I don't want to be a murderer--not that you are, of course--"

"I am a murderer," Chandre said smoothly. "But go on."

"Well, I was wondering how you can be friends with the man who is going to kill you," he said all in one breath.

She stared at him, comprehending at last. "Ah, that." She smiled slightly. "We didn't start off as friends. We were enemies. It's a long story, and completely different than yours. It's only because Shi's an honorable person that I'm alive today. The reason we work together is because our superior placed us as partners, and while she knew precisely what she was getting us into, it was because Shi insisted, and she saw how alike we were." Chandre sighed. "It's because we're so much alike that we learned to trust each other, or rather, I trust him, and I guess that trust turned to friendship."

"But he's going to kill you," Harry said, confused.

"I've accepted that," Chandre replied. "It gives me a very firm handle on life, and the comfort that I know it will be quick, or that I'll have revenge from my murder." She sighed. "Of course, your case is entirely different than mine. Voldemort has no good in him, and he hates and fears you, which makes him want to kill you more."

"But you, does he hate you? You escaped him."

"I think he hates me," Chandre replied slowly. She shuddered. She still had the dreams, and they still scared the shit out of her. "But he can't reach me when I leave the planet."

"Do you hate him?" Harry asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"With all your might?"

"I've never hated anyone with all my might," she said. "And neither should you. It destroys the part of you that is good, thinking only of hatred and revenge." She smiled bitterly. "Of course, you might want to tell that to all my enemies." She stared down at him, this boy with old eyes. He was her age, almost exactly. A part of her was saddened. "You have a choice, Harry, in that final struggle for life, the fight to the end." He looked up at her sharply; he had been staring across the lake, not noticing her eyes on him.

"I do?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes. You can let him kill you, or you can kill him." She swallowed, wondering why she was telling this to a boy. "I'll tell you this, Harry, killing is very, very easy." She closed her eyes. "But it has its consequences. The ghosts will always rest on your shoulder for the rest of your life. They can drive you crazy."

"What about you?" Harry asked.

Chandre smiled sadly. "My ghosts are there, but there are few I regret killing," she said. "It's hard to face the fact of taking another's life, but in most cases it was either me or them. I'm happy it was them, because I want to live."

"What about the ones you murdered?" Harry asked, looking revolted. "That you assassinated? Do you regret any of them?"

"Two," Chandre said. "Only two. But I remember every name of the others. Every single name. And I burn an offering for each, every Remembrance Day. A small offering, and it won't bring them back, but it brings them the respect they didn't have at their deaths." She looked at Harry. "If you beat Voldemort, Harry, do not forget him. Do not forget his death, because it will only come back to haunt you. It will drive you mad if you do not learn to deal with it."

She smiled sadly, and they walked back to the school in silence.

The next morning a letter came in the mail, addressing them as two of their aliases, Chandra Talas and Sig Rueul. Their time of stay at Hogwarts was over, and they quietly contacted Dumbledore, telling him that they had to leave immediately after their last final. Dumbledore nodded, and told them that he'd get them a ride to the spaceport.

Chandre ran into Snape just before leaving for the finals, and they stared at each other for a moment.

"So you're leaving," he said flatly, and his eyes smoldered at her.

"After school," she replied.

"Going off to kill people?" he asked, sneering.

She looked away, jaw clenched. "Listen, I want to thank you for staying with me when I was unconscious." He stared at her, sullenly, and she added, "Most people wouldn't do that."

"Your master did," he growled.

She sighed. "He's not my master. He's my partner, and he did it--I don't know why, but I would do the same for him."

"You love him," Snape said flatly.

"No."

"He loves you," he said. Chandre shook her head. "I saw the way he watched you, lying there on the bed." No need to say which bed. Chandre shuddered. Snape slowly back towards her, and she took a step back until she hit the wall. "You looked to him as the one who saved you. You share your bed with him, your life. Yet there is nothing for me." He reached out his hand and touched her hair, his thumb stroking her cheek. She flinched away. "Kiss me. Just one kiss in parting, so I may have something from you that he cannot."

He leaned forwards, and pressed his lips against hers. She stiffened, then slowly wrapped her arms about him, moving her lips and opened her lips, letting him dig deep into her, probing. He shoved her against the wall, his hands running about her back and waist, pressing her closer to him, and they drew away, him breathless, eyes alight, her calm and cold.

"Good-bye," she said, and turned, walking down the hall to her class. Snape stared at her, watching her move out of his life, and touched his lips. For him, it was love, but for her it was just another kiss.

The rest of the day flew by, and they were at the door promptly almost immediately after school, as they had had to shower and get their things. Dumbledore was waiting for them, and he smiled upon seeing them.

A motorcycle lay at the front steps.

"I apologize for not being able to acquire two," Dumbledore said, greeting them, "but I just couldn't find another one that can go as fast as this, and still travel like a normal bike."

"Thank you," Chandre said.

"For everything," Shi added.

Dumbledore smiled. "I only wish you were coming back next year."

Chandre and Shi laughed. "I don't think so," Shi said with a grin.

"It was peaceful," Chandre said. "But a tad too peaceful."

Dumbledore nodded, and shook his head slightly. He stepped back and watched them examine the bike and strap down their belongings.

"I'm driving," Shi said.

"It's my turn," Chandre replied.

Her partner stared. "Do you remember the last time you drove?"

She sniffed. "That crash kept us alive from those cops. No matter we fell over a cliff."

"It was a hundred feet high!"

"Phssha. You didn't get hurt." She added in a mutter, "Probably because you were drunker than piss at the time."

"I'll toss you for it," he growled, resigned. Pulling out a wizard's coin, he tossed it in the air.

"Tails," Chandre said as it came down, and it smacked on the floor, tails up. Shi cursed and looked slightly paler as he picked up the coin and chose a helmet. Tucking her hair into her helmet, she flipped down the visor and straddled the bike, turning it on and revving the engine expertly. Grimly Shi got on behind her, hands gripping her around her waist.

"By the way, it flies," Dumbledore warned. Shi groaned, burying his head in her shoulder.

"Cool," Chandre said, and found the right button. The motorcycle immediately hovered above the ground, and they waved to Dumbledore, Shi gripping her tightly in one hand, and they flew off.

"If you crash this time, I'm gonna kill you!" he shouted into her ear as they rose above the clouds.

She just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.


End file.
